


Sing Along

by Epsi (Kyoom)



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Alternate Canon, Antagonist!Piers origin story, DLC Spoilers, F/M, Leon is not perfect, Sonia is an actual competent trainer, Underage Smoking, rewritten lore, teenage love triangle bs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28368198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyoom/pseuds/Epsi
Summary: A chance encounter with Mustard sends a young Piers down a different path.An alternate backstory for Piers, in a world where he met Leon and Sonia prior to his Gym Challenge. This Piers is not destined to grow up apathetic - rather, he will be the one to hold the title of 'Leon's rival', and he'll make damn sure Chairman Rose never forgets Spikemuth.
Relationships: Dande | Leon/Sonia, Nezu | Piers/Sonia (Pokemon)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

The plan was simple, one they had down to routine.

Spikemuth Promenade was a spot so hot it sizzled, alight with the bright lights of casinos and arcades. Stretching out of the mountainside, it was the only part of Spikemuth the sun offered its rays to, which fuelled the fire with crowds of eager punters.

Easy targets.

“You remember what you gotta do, don’t you?” he asked, looking down at where Marnie’s bony fingers were intertwined with his.

She nodded and he let her go, watching from an alley as she waddled towards an arcade on her tiny legs. True to their plan, she dropped and began to scream her four-year-old lungs out in a performance worthy of the silver screen. People ran to her side, which was his cue to slip out of the alley.

Several smaller children followed him. They moved through the crowd like ghosts, swift and silent, his hand slipping into pockets as though it were passing through them entirely in order to load up his tattered hoodie with cash. An eye watched the other children, and it was in this that he saw the time-stopping instance when one of them, little Paul, stumbled after someone walked into him from behind. This caused Paul to crash into the man whose pocket he was currently pilfering.

The man looked down, and upon seeing the scruffy child with a hand buried in his coat, his face turned redder than an applin.

 _“Oi!”_ the man roared. “What do you think you’re doin’, you fuckin’ urchin?”

The urchins bolted. Their leader caught Marnie’s hand and pulled her with him down the street. Behind them came angry shouts. Away from the promenade the group ran, the sun disappearing as they were swallowed by the mountain, into its deep, dark bowels.

What foul bowels these were, buildings squashed together so tight there was barely room to breathe, rubbish piled on every corner and raggedy, grey men curled up in doorways.

They stopped at an abandoned warehouse, settling into the yard behind it.

“I’m sorry, Piers,” said Paul to their leader, eyes on his feet.

“It doesn’t matter,” replied Piers. “I think we got away.”

A quick headcount ensued, which told him they had all made it.

“Look what I got!” cried one girl, Susie, holding up a thin piece of cardboard. “It’s a League card! I think it’s a rare one?”

Piers took it from her and was greeted by the image of a buff, shaven-headed man in a sports kit designed to look like armour, who was flexing beside a copperajah.

“Dunno if it’s rare,” he said. “But it’s Steel Peony, the champion, so it should be worth a bob no matter what.”

Marnie leaned in to have a closer look at it.

“Y’know what a champion is, right, Marnie?” Piers asked her. “They’s the ones who make it to the end of the League, which –”

“I know what the League is,” Marnie cut him off. “I’m gonna win it.”

Piers almost wished he had her confidence.

“You’re too young, stupid,” he dismissed.

His sister pouted at him. “You go win it, then, stupid!”

“Good one. People from shitholes like Spikemuth don’t win Leagues. We ain’t got the fundin’, or the support, or anythin’...”

“Big Janis the Joyless was from Spikemuth, and _she_ won the League.”

“That was fifty years ago. Things were different back then. Spikemuth actually had a gym, for one thing, and it was the biggest, baddest gym around. These days it ain’t like that, and anyway, these days anyone who gets to the final gets crushed by Peony here, and that’s the end of them.”

“Not anymore,” said Paul. “Ain’t you heard? Steel Peony might quit, they say. It was on the news!”

“What?” Now that was something Piers didn’t understand. “Why the hell would he quit? He’s on top of the world!”

“The old League chairman is retirin’ this year or somethin’, and Peony’s not happy about one of the blokes who’s lookin’ to take over. Said he might leave if that bloke gets it.”

“See?” said Marnie. “You could do it, Piers!”

She had to be joking, except she was too young for sarcasm. The sparkling enthusiasm in her eyes told no lies, either. It was that enthusiasm that made him think for a moment that maybe, just maybe, with no champion to face, he actually could.

“I’m still gonna be champion one day,” Marnie added.

Her unwavering self-belief was enough to put a smile on Piers’s face, despite it all. This smile disappeared when he saw the irate figures making their way towards his group. It was the man from the promenade, accompanied by two older teens who must have been his sons.

“You little shits thought you could get away with it, did you?” barked the man.

Ahead of them lumbered a bulky rabbit-like pokémon with enormous ears that became fists: a diggersby. Eyes not leaving the diggersby, Piers thrust Marnie’s hand into Paul’s.

“Take Marnie and run,” he ordered. “I’ll deal with this.”

“But –”

_“Go!”_

They went. Marnie tried to grab Piers’s hand but was unsuccessful, pulled away by the others into the warehouse. Piers hoped she didn’t see the fact his legs were shaking, or the sweat beads on his skin. Swallowing, he pulled a Poké Ball out of his pocket and tossed it. There was a flash of light, and from that light, Ramone emerged. The sight of Ramone was enough to give his attackers pause, which was no surprise: Ramone was twice the average size of a zigzagoon, and covered in scabs and scars from the number of battles he had endured already.

This initial shock only lasted a few seconds. The diggersby threw itself at Ramone with one ear-fist cocked back. Ramone rolled out of the way a second before the fist slammed into the earth. Taking advantage of his opponent’s slow recovery, Ramone lunged and sank his sharp fangs into the diggersby’s exposed side.

At the same time, the man and his sons advanced on Piers. Piers was lucky to get a pre-emptive nut shot in on one of the sons, leaving the poor git writhing in the dirt, then the other swung a fist. Piers ducked away, right before something crashed into his stomach that must have been a car from how hard it hit him. All the air left his lungs in one violent burst. He hit the ground and lay there, wheezing like an elder. It could not have been a car that hit him, he realised, or he would be dead, but he almost wished he was from how much pain he was in. Through watery vision he saw Ramone go flying.

 _Get up,_ demanded a voice hardly audible over the blood pounding in his ears. _Got to protect your friends. Protect Marnie._

The man stood over him, looking down and laughing. A new kind of rage burned through him, then, intense enough to give his hands the strength to push him back up, no matter how much it hurt to do so.

He and Ramone put up a hell of a fight, if he said so himself, but in the end, all the gumption in the world meant nothing in the face of something bigger.

They left him by the side of road, beaten bloody to the degree his own mother wouldn’t have recognised him were she to rise from her grave. He felt fur brush against him that could only have been Ramone’s, and slid an arm around his zigzagoon. Together to the end.

A shadow fell over him. One eye was swollen shut, and the other was too blurry for him to make out anything but a greyish blob. He coughed, tasting copper in his gob as he struggled to get his words out; “Is – Marnie alright?”

The blurs sharpened for only a second, but that single second was all it took to turn his blood to ice.

A fang-filled maw. Razor sharp claws. Clanking golden scales.

All of these belonged to one being – a kommo-o.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rolling up to the SwSh fandom well over a year late, let's go
> 
> After realising how much of an effective foil to Leon Piers is, I became disappointed SwSh didn't utilise Piers much. So, consider this a prequel to the SwSh That Never Was, in which Piers and Team Yell are more standard pokemon villains embodying the rebellious spirit of punk/metal.
> 
> Spikemuth is by the sea in-game, so I tried to make it resemble an actual British seaside town somewhat with a promenade of arcades.


	2. Chapter 2

Piers was certain he died. Everything went black, his final thought before the darkness consumed him being _this is what I get for not runnin’._

Silence. Stillness. Nothing.

Or perhaps there was something? He felt coldness against the swollen side of his face, though it was a soothing kind, one that seemed to be making the swelling shrink.

His good eye opened, but a few moments passed before he processed that there was a roof above him, and that he was lying down on what appeared to be an old, mouldy sofa.

Wherever he was, it had to be Hell, except it made no sense for Hell to be cold. Hell also looked an awful lot like a room. What kind of room, he could not say; the walls were papered red and peeling, curtain-like cobwebs hanging from their corners. Clinging to one wall was a torn poster, which was whole enough for him to make out a muscular warrior woman with wild hair down to her feet and a glare that could penetrate steel. She wore a black sleeveless shirt, two spiked pauldrons, and black shorts bearing the number 13 in magenta. Even in a damaged state, Piers recognised her as Janis the Joyless, former Dark-type champion of Galar.

Facing off with Janis was a shirtless man clad in a cape and golden shorts numbered 0. The words beneath them were difficult to read, but the poster seemed to be advertising a legendary clash between Janis and the reigning champion, Mustard.

“You’re finally awake!” came an unfamiliar voice. “I was beginning to worry.”

Sat on a collapsible camping chair was an old man, probably one of the oldest Piers had ever seen. Something about his face was familiar, but it was such a wrinkled face he had a hard time placing it. The placement of the face meant nothing to Piers once he remembered he was otherwise alone.

“Marnie!” he cried, jolting upright. He fell back again as pain stabbed through him from around his injured eye.

“Your little friends made it back to the orphanage safe and sound. Here; drink this. It’ll dull the pain.”

The old man handed Piers a cup of strange liquid that if he were more coherent he might’ve had second thoughts about, but in his current state he downed without any thought at all. It was warm and tasted faintly of cinnamon.

True to the old man’s words, his pain began to recede, and he felt his swelling shrink even faster. This allowed his mind to further regain clarity. He saw the old man’s kommo-o stood in one corner, and on closer inspection it too was rather old.

“I gotta get back to them. Marnie’s gonna be worried sick –”

“Do you really think she’ll feel any better if she sees you in this state? Wait ‘til your swelling goes down; then you can go.”

Piers supposed the old man made a good point, though he settled with a reluctant grimace.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Ah, you’ll have to forgive me; I’m just passing through, so I didn’t know anywhere else I could bring you except here, to Janis’s old place. It’s certainly seen better days, hasn’t it?”

Indeed it had; Piers noticed now there were several glass cases around the room, all of them shattered, their contents stolen. That was the level of respect Spikemuth showed for its hero.

The old man gave a sad shake of his head. “Such a shame. Janis was one of the fiercest champions of our era, and she made a hell of a fierce Gym Leader after she lost her title, too. She may have had the disadvantage against me, but that hydreigon of hers was something else, I tell you!” His kommo-o let out a sound halfway between a whine and a growl. “Yes, you remember. Her hydreigon nearly bit your head off once or twice.”

The realisation hit Piers with the force of a lorry. He looked at the shirtless man on the poster, then back to the old man before him now, eyes widening. “You’re – you’re Mustard!”

“Who, me?” The old man tapped himself on the chin in an act of mock-forgetfulness. “I suppose I am!”

“What’s someone like you doin’ in a place like this?”

“Now that’s a funny question. What do you mean by ‘place like this’?”

“You know what I mean. There ain’t nothin’ for a former champion in Spikemuth. We ain’t _got_ nothin’.”

“I like to travel, every now and again. Keeps me fit. I suppose I was feeling a bit nostalgic this time around, so I decided to re-trace my steps from my own days as a Gym Challenger. You may think there’s nothing in Spikemuth now, but a long time ago this town produced some of the toughest trainers I’ve ever faced.”

“Yeah, well, that was then.”

Mustard regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. “It could be so again, if you let it. Tell me, boy, have you considered taking the Gym Challenge?”

Piers’s mind went to the potentially empty champion spot, but as soon as it did, an image came storming in unbidden, that of a hand ruffling his hair. This hand was attached to a man much taller than Piers, the man’s figure made a shadow by light behind. The hand drew back as the man began to turn away. Piers shook this unwelcome image off, and instead all he saw was Marnie’s hopeful face after she had said that he could win. His insides twisted into knots.

“Maybe,” he replied.

Mustard held a flyer out to Piers. The teen took it and found that it advertised something called the ‘Master Dojo’, which was apparently holding classes for would-be trainers. The flyer scrunched in his hand. He looked at Mustard as though the old man were out of his mind. “You need to take your fuckin’ pills, you old fart. I ain’t got the money for that. Why would you even want me at your dojo, anyway?”

Why? The single word blared in his head over and over.

_I’m just some street rat. I’m nothin’. He’s gotta be makin’ fun of me…_

“An old fart, you say?” Mustard chuckled. “You’ve got more guts than you realise to say that to my face. I’ll let it pass, boy, because I like your spirit. If you can’t afford the regular classes, that’s fine; I have a special class I’m running before those ones start. The only price of admission there is your willingness to partake.”

Piers stood up. “Forget it. Thanks for helpin’ me, and all, but you’re talkin’ to the wrong person. Spikemuth is where I belong. I can’t abandon it.”

Despite his words, he didn’t discard the flyer, shoving it into his pocket. He made for a door on the opposite side of the room.

“I’ll be here if you change your mind, for at least another day. I’m going to tidy this place up a bit. Janis deserves that much...”

Piers left through an indoor battlefield, which was covered in scratches and marks from the battles of a bygone era. The former gym was a dismal sight both in and out, its windows boarded and its sign missing most of its letters.

He tried not to look back at it, passing by many more buildings in similar states of dilapidation. One hand rummaged around inside his hoodie and pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. The sweet taste of nicotine didn’t elevate his mood as much as he hoped it would. Exhaling, he craned his head to look up at the cavernous ceiling, wondering distantly what time it was. The busiest places he saw were various betting shops and food banks, but this was always the case. He avoided eye contact, only looking up again when he reached a blocky grey complex surrounded by a barred fence.

An earful from the matron wasn’t something he fancied, so he climbed up a pipe and through an open window, dropping onto a creaky set of stairs. He reached the room he and Marnie shared with several other children, their bunk-beds lined in a row. Marnie was sat on her bed, but she leapt up and ran to him the second he stepped in. _“Piers!_ Where were you?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He climbed up onto the bunk above hers. Here he laid, arms behind his head, until he heard Marnie let out a sigh. Glancing over, he saw her slumped by her bed, eyes on the floor and expression vacant. This would not do. He retrieved a purrloin glove-puppet from under his pillow and held it in Marnie’s direction, making it dance. “Oi, Marnie, look. It’s Miss Meow!”

Marnie looked, however her expression didn’t change, and she quickly looked away again. Piers gave up on the puppet idea.

“If you’re bored, why don’t you draw or somethin’?” he suggested.

His sister shrugged and retrieved paper and pens from the corner of the room. She sat by their beds and began to scrawl away. From above, Piers could see her drawing, which looked like a yellow, brown and black smudge with two smaller pink smudges near its top.

“What pokémon is that, Marnie?”

“It’s a morpeko.”

“You like that one, eh? It’s cute.”

“I guess.”

She still didn’t smile. That hurt him more than fists ever could.

“Hey, Piers?”

“Yeah?”

“When’s Dad comin’ back?”

Just like that, Marnie found a way to make him hurt even more. He knew she didn’t mean to, and it wasn’t her that hurt him, per say; rather what hurt him was that he once again saw the shadowy man standing before him, except this time he could clearly see the man’s face was so much like his own. The man turned away fully this time, and disappeared into the light beyond. He left behind a tightness in Piers’s chest that squeezed worse than a vice.

“One day,” Piers answered.

“I hope it’s soon.”

Piers didn’t have it in him to say anything else. Marnie was too young to understand, he reminded himself; it was going to be a few years before she realised the truth.

He drew Mustard’s crumpled flyer. His eyes stared at the picture of the dojo for so long it was a wonder they didn’t burn holes through it. He lowered the flyer again, to be greeted by actual holes in the ceiling above him. He glanced at Marnie, who had finished her drawing, and now once more stared off into the distance with an unfocused gaze.

The next day, he took Marnie with him to Janis’s old gym. Mustard was sweeping the floor. The old man paused the moment they entered, leaned on the broom and watched Piers expectantly.

“Fine,” said Piers. “I accept your offer.”

Mustard broke into a grin that swallowed his ears. “That’s what I like to hear! We’ll have to arrange it with whoever’s in charge of your orphanage, of course, so show me the way.”

“Yeah, one question. Can my sister come and watch? I ain’t got no family but her.”

Marnie peeked out from behind Piers, though she seemed more interested in the kommo-o asleep on the sofa than Mustard. The old man took one look at her and nodded, much to Piers’s relief.

“Not a problem at all!”

That was how, only two weeks later, Piers and Marnie found themselves boarding a Flying Taxi in the marshes outside Spikemuth. The driver gave them a bit of a disdainful look, but said nothing as they climbed inside.

“Where’re we goin’?” asked Marnie.

“You’ll see,” replied Piers.

_And so will I._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It begins.


	3. Chapter 3

Piers swore one day he would have words with whoever decided the best way to travel was via a box dangling from the claws of a large, irritable bird. The taxi swayed back and forth as wind toyed with it too roughly for his liking. His hands gripped the seat with such intensity his knuckles had turned paler than they had been to begin with.

Marnie was nowhere near as fearful, pressed up against a window.

“Look!” she cried, pointing. “We’re here!”

Below them lay an emerald island amidst the glittering sapphire sea. It was larger than Piers had expected it to be. His eyes were drawn to the dual towers jutting from opposite sides of the island, one by the sea and one on a mountain, their architecture reminding him of a place called Johto he’d seen on television.

The taxi descended until it reached an unmanned station building. Here they disembarked.

“Will everyone else be okay without you there?” asked Marnie.

“They should be. I told ‘em to stay away from the Promenade and Claremont Lane, so as long as they listen, they’ll be fine.”

“They never listen…”

“Well, let’s hope this time’s different, yeah?”

The pair left the station, emerging into a barrage of sunlight. Piers recoiled as his eyeballs were almost burned out of their sockets. If Marnie’s giggle was any indication, she found this reaction amusing.

“You’re a vampire!” she said.

It was good to hear Marnie show emotion again, so Piers didn’t mind, trying his best to smile back at her even as he shielded his eyes. “Didn’t I tell you we’s half-vampire on Dad’s side? Half-werewolf on Mum’s, too.”

“You told me our parents were obstagoons.”

“And those live in holes, which is where I should be. Gimme a minute.”

Once his eyes had adjusted, he led Marnie away from the station across a narrow beach. Fat slowpokes tanned themselves on the sands. Marnie cooed at the slowpokes, which paid them no mind.

Up from the beach they walked across a grassy field. Piers was already sweating buckets from how hot and bright it was, though Marnie seemed fine, somehow. A building sat ahead with similar architecture to the towers. Above the doors was a sign in the shape of a bear pokémon’s face.

“I wonder what pokémon that is,” said Marnie.

“No idea. Anyway, here’s the dojo. It’s quiet, innit…”

As if to prove him wrong, the sound of yapping shattered the still air. They followed the noise to see a dog-like creature with a lolling tongue, a yamper, bounding towards Marnie. Piers didn’t think twice before unleashing Ramone. His zigzagoon materialised in the yamper’s path and let out a warning snarl, which made the yamper skid to a halt.

“Cor, look at the size of that zigzagoon!” remarked a new voice.

Another boy appeared, ambling over as though they were best friends. What jumped out to Piers immediately was the fact this boy wore a denim jacket, except he’d taken his arms out so that it was worn like a cape. A plain black snapback cap sat atop unruly purple hair that reached the base of his neck.

“You must’ve fed him well,” continued the newcomer. “I didn’t know there was going to be anyone else at the dojo. Thought it would just be me.”

Mustard hadn’t mentioned anyone else to Piers, either. Marnie ducked behind him, and she wasn’t alone in her anxiousness; he felt invisible walls rise up between himself and the other teen. His mind offered nothing to say that would break them down, and he was certain even if he did the other teen wouldn’t like him, so what was the point in trying?

“Oi, I’m talking to you,” said the other teen. “It’s polite to talk back in these kinda situations, you know. Is there anyone there?”

_“Leon!”_

A girl arrived, then, who appeared to be the same age, with curly red hair tied into two tails. Clinging to her was a boy around Marnie’s age, perhaps slightly younger, who looked exactly like Leon except shrunken down.

“Don’t suddenly run off like that,” the girl chided Leon. “You’ll get lost!”

“Sorry, Sonia,” said Leon, though he was grinning as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “But I ran off ‘cause Flash ran off. Figured he smelled something cool.”

Sonia knelt beside the yamper and stroked it, which it accepted with a chipper bark. She looked up at Piers and smiled apologetically.

“Sorry about that,” she said to him. “Flash gets excited when he meets new people.”

“Err…”

If there had been walls around Piers before, those now morphed into a fortress, alarms clattering inside his mind as it went into panic overdrive.

_Oh hell’s bells when was the last time a girl even talked to me I mean there’s Susie but she’s like ten what do I say –_

His jaw floundered for one very stupid moment that probably only lasted a second, but to him, lasted far too long, and was not helped by the fact he could feel both Marnie and Ramone looking at him. He pulled his hoodie up to hide his face and turned away, recalling Ramone. “Whatever.”

He entered through the dojo doors. Inside looked exactly like something out of a kung-fu action flick. With its wooden panelling, centre taken up by a battling arena and walls adorned by scrolls, the entire complex emitted a Fighting-type aura that instinct told him to run away from. He had nowhere to run, however, and he wasn’t going to look like a coward in front of Marnie.

“Here we are!” announced Leon, practically kicking the doors down. “You see this, Hop? This is where my legend begins!”

“Yeah!” cheered his brother, evidently named Hop.

“It’s certainly impressive,” said Sonia. “Kind of thought there’d be more people around, though…”

Something pinged off a wall and somersaulted through the air, landing in front of them to reveal that it was in fact Mustard, defying both gravity and age. The second his feet touched the ground he struck a pose on one leg with both arms outstretched. At the same time, a woman stepped out of a kitchen area to the left in order to stand next to him.

 _“Welcome!”_ Mustard declared. “This is the one and only Master Dojo. As you know, I am Mustard, and from now on that’s _Master_ Mustard to you! Beside me is my lovely wife, Honey, and you better do everything she says, too!”

“Hi, kids,” greeted Honey, whose accent sounded like it was from somewhere in the Federation; Piers went with Unova, if only because Unova was the only Federal region he knew the name of.

“You’ll find you made the right choice coming here,” said Mustard. “The three of you are about to set out on a journey to greater heights than you ever thought possible!”

Leon and Hop both sounded their enthusiasm, but Sonia was baffled.

“Three?” she repeated. “You’ve got this wrong, sir, err, no offense. I’m not here to train; my gran sent me to help Leon find his way safely –”

“Nonsense!” Mustard interrupted. “You intend to take the Gym Challenge, don’t you?”

“I guess I’d thought about it...”

“Then that means you can train with us!”

“Just like that? I – I don’t know…”

“Why not?” Leon asked, turning to her. “You _did_ come all this way. And what about that time we were talking about being real rivals and stuff? We said we’d push each other to be better and all that, right?”

“Go on, Sonia,” agreed Hop.

“See, Hop thinks you should do it!”

It took Sonia a moment of indecisive thinking, but then she perked up. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll need to ring my gran and see what she says.”

She stepped away to do this.

“While she’s doing that,” said Mustard. “I suppose it makes sense to introduce yourselves to each other. You’re going to be spending your summer together, after all!”

Leon practically shoved a hand in Piers’s face. “I’m Leon, from Wyndon! Same place as Steel Peony, Earthquake Jake, Amanda of the Twin Lances and a load of other awesome leaders and champions. None of that lot could ever beat Master Mustard, though, and I don’t want to be a Steel trainer like them. I’m gonna train whatever types I can!”

Piers was silent as he stared at Leon’s hand.

_Right, the Galarian tradition of statin’ everyone from your town who ever made it big, as if that somehow means somethin’ for you. Of course, when you’re from the fuckin’ capital, you ain’t got a shortage of names to list off…_

Behind him, Sonia’s voice suddenly lifted; “I _know_ it’s short notice, Gran – yeah, I know – I don’t know…”

Hesitantly, Piers took Leon’s hand, which Leon proceeded to yank out of its socket with the excitement of his shake. Piers was quick to break away from him, forcing himself not to grit his teeth too much as he answered; “Piers. From Spikemuth.”

“Spikemuth?” replied Leon. “Never heard of it. Wait, yeah I have: that’s where Janis the Joyless was from. She’s the one you beat to win your champion title, right, Master Mustard?”

“I did indeed, but she was quite the rival to me beforehand, and remained so after. She and Opal were the scariest ladies I ever knew. Opal still is!”

“Yeah, you’ll have to send me a toothbrush,” continued Sonia. “It’s fine. I mean, I wasn’t going to be doing anything else this summer, and there’s a lot of really rare pokémon here, so who knows, maybe I’ll find something neat, right? Thanks, Gran. Love you too.”

She ended the call and walked back over, looking a bit exasperated for a moment before she pushed it back. “My gran says it’s okay.”

“Excellent,” said Mustard. “So, are you going to introduce yourself?”

“Well, Leon already knows, but err, I’m Sonia. From Wedgehurst. We’ve never had any champions in our area, although there’s this one lady in Postwick who did alright at the Major League a few years ago. Nicole’s her name.”

“That’s Gloria’s mum!” chimed Hop, whom Piers had honestly forgotten was there. “Gloria told me her mum’s snorlax was really strong!”

“Very good,” said Mustard. “Let’s not waste any more time, shall we? You’ll find the changing rooms and your new uniforms through there.”

He pointed towards a door to their right. Leon raced through it faster than a liepard. By the time Piers entered, Leon was already changed into his new uniform: a bright yellow jacket, black polyester shirt and shorts, plus pads on his knees and elbows. He had kept his cap on, and taken his arms out of the jacket to wear it like his previous jacket, using a belt that was probably meant to have gone around his waist to tie it to his shoulders.

“Rather slow, aren’t you?” drawled the other teen.

He was gone again within seconds. Piers grimaced in irritation, but said nothing and replaced his ratty clothes with his new kit. Looking himself over in a mirror, he felt like a wooloo dressed up as a thievul. It was not the kind of look he preferred, to say the least.

He left the changing room at the same time as Sonia in her new gear. She, too, appeared uncomfortable, her cheeks stained an embarrassed pink, but she looked a hell of a lot better than he did.

“Now,” said Mustard. “I will admit that I had initially only planned to tutor Leon, so I’ve had to rethink how this will go. Since there are three of you, we might as well start you off with the three rare pokémon we’ve been raising here. Honey, be a dear and bring them out, would you please?”

Honey drew three Poké Balls and tossed them up into the air. They exploded in a brilliant burst of light, which formed into three pokémon unlike any Piers had seen before. The first was a bright orange lizard, a flame burning on the tip of its tail. Next came a blue turtle on two legs, and finally a greenish-blue dinosaur with a bulb growing from its back.

As the three pokémon appeared, they all collided with each other. The lizard turned to the other two with an angry hiss. The turtle defiantly croaked back, while the dinosaur whined.

The lizard swept its claws across the dinosaur’s face, eliciting a yelp of pain. The dinosaur didn’t retaliate, instead covering its face with its front-legs while the lizard towered over it, claws glinting as it raised them to strike again. The turtle ran to the rescue, throwing itself at the lizard and twisting so that its hard shell sent the lizard staggering back. The lizard remained on its feet, though, and sprang at the turtle to return fire with multiple swipes. It succeeded in knocking the turtle off-balance, then with one swing of its tail sent the turtle sprawling across the floor, until Sonia caught it.

 _“Enough!”_ barked Mustard.

“They certainly have a lot of energy,” observed Honey. “Alright, say hello to charmander, bulbasaur and squirtle. These are three very special pokémon bred by none other than Professor Oak himself. They may be small now, but they evolve into some of the mightiest pokémon the world has ever known!”

“I consider you three to be worthy of their power,” said Mustard. “Leon, you can choose first, since you’re the only one here who doesn’t already have a pokémon!”

“I know exactly which one I want,” replied Leon. “The charmander. It’s clearly the strongest!”

The charmander looked to Leon at the sound of its name. Leon strode towards it with the confidence of twenty men. The charmander took a step back. Leon didn’t falter for a second, getting down on one knee and never once losing eye contact. The charmander let out a hiss at him. Leon simply grinned.

“You’re tough,” he said. “And that’s good, but you don’t scare me!”

The charmander seemed surprised for a second, but then it broke into a toothy grin of its own and approached Leon, much to his delight. “There we are! I’m aiming to be the next champion, so be ready. You and I’ll be doing some serious training!”

That left Piers and Sonia. Given that Sonia hadn’t let go of the squirtle, Piers’s only option seemed to be the bulbasaur. He crouched beside it. “Hi.”

The Grass-typed lowered its front-legs and blinked up at him. Piers extended a hand to it. It took a few seconds, but eventually the bulbasaur dared to sniff his hand. He allowed it to do this, then gently petted its head.

Sonia smiled down at the squirtle in her arms. “That means you’re mine.”

The squirtle gave a happy-sounding croak in response. Growling alerted them all to Sonia’s yamper. His ears were flat against his head, and he approached the squirtle with his body low to the ground. Sonia held a hand out to block him. “Hey, Flash, stop it. Be nice! What’s gotten into you?” Flash did as he was told, but still Sonia sighed. “Right, Water-types and Electric-types are opposed. Forgot about that. Only I could start myself off with two types that hate each other…”

“You’re certain that’s your choice?” Mustard asked her. “Training pokémon of many types isn’t impossible, but it _can_ be difficult, and it may lead you to fall behind those who prefer to stick to one or two types.”

Lines formed on Sonia’s forehead and she nervously looked away. “I’m not sure…”

Her eyes flitted up again, first to Leon and Hop, then to Piers. She steeled herself and returned Flash to his ball. “Yeah, it’s fine. My gran has pokémon of all different types together in her lab. If she can make them get along, so can I.”

“Wonderful,” said Mustard with a genuine smile. “Your training can truly begin!”

“The little ones can stay with me,” said Honey. “Come along, you two! Why don’t we try some baking?”

“I wanna watch Lee,” Hop objected, but Honey guided him along anyway.

Marnie tried to hide behind Piers again, only he stopped her.

“It’s okay,” he said as soothingly as he could manage. “They’re nice people here. You’re safe.”

Marnie was slow to nod her head. Piers wondered how she could so confidently proclaim her intentions to be champion one moment and be so afraid of people the next.

“Good luck,” said Marnie.

As Honey led the children into the kitchen, Piers’s eyes zeroed in on the woman’s shapely rear clad in her tight-fitting jeans. Being a champion definitely had its perks.

“Right, then!” cried Mustard. “We will begin your training simply enough: with a question. What is it you want?”

“That’s obvious,” Leon answered before Piers could even begin processing what Mustard had asked. “I want to be the greatest champion the world’s ever seen, even greater than you were, Master Mustard!”

“What do you mean ‘were’?” retorted Mustard. “Still, I knew that’s what you would say. Your grandfather has told me often enough about your ambitions. What about you, Piers?”

_I want Spikemuth to be better. I want my friends to be safe. I want to see Marnie smile again._

“I want to be a Gym Leader,” Piers said.

Sonia’s turn. The girl shuffled, glancing around uneasily like she hoped an answer would present itself for her.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I suppose Gran wants me to take over her lab one day, so that?”

“This isn’t about what your gran wants,” said Mustard. “It’s about what _you_ want. If you’re not sure yet, that’s fine. One of your goals here is to figure out which path is the correct one. Regardless, I think we’ve talked enough, haven’t we? We are all trainers here, and really, what’s the best way for trainers to meet other than in battle?”

In an instant, Leon rounded on Piers.

“Come on, Piers!” he exclaimed. “You and me!”

“What happened to me being your rival?” Sonia protested.

“Whoever wins may battle you next, Sonia,” said Mustard.

“See?” said Leon. “I’ll battle you right after I beat Piers here. Are you even listening, Piers? You too afraid or something?”

Piers’s irritation swelled and he glared. “Nah. I’m not the one who needs a girl to lead me everywhere.”

“That girl is right here!” cried a now frustrated-sounding Sonia.

Rather than using the battlefield inside the dojo, Mustard brought them to a more open battlefield behind it. Piers stood on one side with his new bulbasaur, while Leon and his charmander stood opposite.

“Here we go, Napalm!” declared Leon, pointing to the middle of the field.

Although this was the first time the charmander had heard its new name, Leon spoke with such commanding presence that it took the field without hesitation. It opened its mouth and spat a flame into the air.

Piers glanced at his bulbasaur, which was worrying its lip. His hand went to Ramone’s ball instead. Yet again, the zigzagoon appeared, gnashing his teeth to herald his return.

“I’m not dumb enough to battle you at a type disadvantage,” Piers explained. “Ramone’s gonna mess you up with his Snarl and Sand Attack!”

In spite of Ramone’s savagery, Leon had a glint in his eye as though Piers had just presented him with a ticket to a theme park.

“Are you kidding me?” Leon exclaimed. “This is better!”

Ramone didn’t wait for Piers to give the order and charged. Piers cursed Ramone’s aggressive Dark-type nature. At the very least, the inexperienced charmander did nothing but stand there before Ramone’s big body slammed into it.

 _“To me,_ Ramone!” Piers demanded, putting all the firmness into his voice he could. He snapped his fingers and pointed to a spot in front of him. Although Ramone had gotten a good hit in, he knew the importance of keeping his dominance established. Fortunately, Ramone lowered his head and returned to the spot he indicated.

“Steady on, Napalm!” Leon called to his charmander. “That was nothing we can’t handle. Time to turn up the heat with an Ember!”

As he gave the order he made a gesture of something flying from his mouth. Napalm understood right away and shot a searing fireball. Piers ordered to dodge and waved an arm. Ramone leapt in the direction he indicated a second before the fireball scorched where he had stood.

“Good! Keep doing it!”

Piers was forced to run across the sidelines and gesticulate wildly to where he wanted Ramone to dodge to. He couldn’t remember the last time a battle had made him work this hard. His heartbeat sped up, adrenaline pumping through him and making him weightless.

 _“Back flow!”_ he ordered.

Ramone looked down at the ground and let out a snarl with soundwaves that took visible shape as shadows. These shadows propelled him into the air over Napalm’s flaming shots and sent him tumbling down towards the charmander itself. The two went rolling across the battlefield, Ramone managing to stop on his feet, but Napalm crashing onto its back. Piers couldn’t help smirking slightly. A technique he and Ramone had developed in the backstreets of Spikemuth, it never failed to catch his opponents off-guard.

 _“Don’t give up!”_ Leon yelled with such conviction even Piers felt encouraged for a second.

It worked ten times as well for inspiring Napalm, who flew back onto his feet and let loose a fireball bigger than the previous ones. This one struck Ramone and set part of his fur alight, causing him to frantically flail around on the ground to put it out, which he managed to do, to Piers’s relief.

“Got you, got you!” Leon taunted, sticking his tongue out, though his attention was on Ramone, not Piers. Napalm mimicked him, also sticking its tongue out at Ramone.

This caused Ramone to bare his fangs in rage, which Piers realised was Leon’s intention all too late as Ramone charged once again without order. This time Napalm stood ready for him.

“Ember!”

“Ramone! Pack it in!”

Ramone didn’t listen, lunging forward again straight into another Ember.

_“Ramone!”_

This time, Piers succeeded in getting Ramone to back up.

“Sand Attack!” he commanded.

Ramone kicked a cloud of sand into Napalm’s eyes. As the charmander stumbled back, rubbing them, Ramone used his weight to send it to the dirt. The zigzagoon pinned the charmander down and leaned in close, peeling back his lips to reveal his full array of fangs.

“It’s over!” announced Mustard. “Piers wins!”

Piers recalled Ramone into his ball, grateful the zigzagoon didn’t try to resist this. Leon, meanwhile, threw his hat against the ground. The look on his face could have withered a rainforest.

“I almost had that!” he whined.

Piers wished he could’ve shown elation, but Leon was too right, which made his fists clench instead.

_It shouldn’t have been that close._

“Excellent, excellent!” Mustard laughed, clapping. “Alright, Sonia, you may battle. Take Leon’s place on the battlefield. Don’t look so glum, Leon. You were up against an opponent who has battled before, using a pokémon that has never been a serious battle. I would say you held your own quite well in spite of that.”

“But I watched all your matches!” sulked Leon. “I should’ve won!”

“There is no ‘should’ in pokémon battling, something you have learned today. Anything can happen, and anything _will._ Now, enough with the attitude. A true champion doesn’t sulk!”

That seemed to be enough to motivate Leon to return Napalm, pick up his hat and walk to Mustard’s side.

“Smash his pokémon, Sonia!” Leon urged as he passed her.

Sonia stopped opposite Piers and took a deep breath. Unlike her friend, she was visibly shaking for a moment before she caught herself and fixed Piers with the most determined glare she could muster, which was still nervous-looking, but an admirable effort.

“I’m not dumb enough to fight you at a type disadvantage, either,” she said, throwing a ball. “Let’s go, Flash!”

Her yamper reappeared and padded onto the field. Ramone was hurt, so Piers opted to go with his new acquisition, the bulbasaur. He looked at the bulbasaur and pointed towards the field.

“Your turn,” he said.

The bulbasaur stared.

“I said _your turn!”_

This time he spoke with enough force to get the bulbasaur to scamper out there.

“Tackle!” ordered Sonia.

Flash broke into a run. The bulbasaur, lacking Ramone’s experience, merely looked confused by this behaviour until Flash hurled his body into it. Though dazed, it stayed standing, and Piers saw two thin vines slide from beneath its bulb.

“Vine Whip!” he cried, making a whipping gesture with his arm.

He thanked his stars that the bulbasaur got the general idea, its vines extending further and slapping Flash across the face. A second later, though, Flash’s teeth latched onto one of the vines. The dog tugged on it, dragging the bulbasaur towards him no matter how much it tried to scramble away.

“Nuzzle!” Sonia called.

Sparks popped around Flash’s nose seconds before he let go of the vine and brought his head to a rough meeting with the bulbasaur’s. The bulbasaur stumbled back, face scrunched as electrical coils crackled across its body.

_Paralysis. Great. That’s fuckin’ great!_

Right as Piers felt at a loss what to do, he saw the sides of the bulbasaur begin to glow with soft green light.

“Is that your ability?” he asked it.

The bulbasaur pushed itself back up. Piers surged with hope. “You’re in for it now; his ability just kicked in! _Vine Whip again!”_

Once more the vines lashed out towards Flash, faster this time. They struck him so hard Piers heard it. This time when the yamper went down, he didn’t get back up. Unfortunately, the bulbasaur collapsed no sooner than this happened. 

“It’s over!” announced Mustard. “We’ll call that one a tie. Naturally, none of you have much experience, but I’ve seen enough here to get an idea of where to go. Yes, very interesting!”

With these words, he headed back into the dojo. Leon and Sonia followed him. Piers approached his bulbasaur and scooped it into his arms. “Should probably think of a name for you. I dunno, how about Rezillo?” The bulbasaur tilted its head. “You’ll get used to it.” He looked towards the dojo. “As for me, I ain’t never gonna get used to this. What’ve I gotten into…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Piers's pokemon are all named after real life punk bands, although none of those bands exist in-universe. When I write about the pokemon world, I like everyone to give their pokemon nicknames, because you don't go around calling your cat 'Cat', do you?
> 
> Piers is also younger, so he has a bit more aggression and fight in him than he does in the canon's present.
> 
> Speaking of canon, Leon was canonically ten when he did his challenge, but I've aged him up to fourteen here. Sonia and Piers are also fourteen.
> 
> Finally, I'm also applying some headcanons to this story about the pokemon types and how they behave and interact and how this relates to most trainers being monotype, and also headcanons about how the regions of the pokemon world connect to each other and correspond to real world counterparts: mentioned in this chapter was the Federation, which is the pokemon equivalent of the USA composed of Unova, Orre and 47 other regions representing the other states (Hawaii/Alola excluded because I consider Alola to be independent, protected from outsiders by the Tapu).


	4. Chapter 4

The cave was relaxing. This was something Piers had decided within five minutes of entering it. There was no endless blue sky above to dizzy him, and its walls provided a feeling of security the openness of the outside didn’t.

He sat on a rock, lit dimly by electric bulbs lining the cavern’s craggy sides. His pokémon were out of their balls, Ramone pacing back and forth a few steps ahead and Rezillo preferring to stay by Piers.

“You alright, girl?” he asked his bulbasaur. She didn’t seem distressed, so he turned his attention to his zigzagoon. “Oi, Ramone. See any ribbons?”

Ribbons. The ache in Piers’s legs was a testimony to how long he’d been scouring the island and still not found any. Ramone’s answer was a predictable low growl, which led Piers to sigh. His hands twitched, craving a cigarette, but like a fool he’d left his packet in his hoodie.

Ramone moved closer to Rezillo. The bulbasaur straightened up, her muscles growing tense as Ramone neared.

“Easy, Ramone,” warned Piers. He knew Ramone’s types were neutral towards Rezillo’s, but that didn’t mean he abandoned caution.

Ramone sniffed Rezillo’s face. Rezillo screwed her eyes shut and backed up a step. Ramone came closer again, only for Piers to nudge him back. “I told you to be easy.” Ramone grumbled and Piers thought for a second his zigzagoon might try to bite him, though Ramone wandered off to poke the ground instead. Piers stroked Rezillo. “Ramone’s a friend, just not one who understands personal space.”

Footsteps. Piers looked towards them, in time to see Sonia bumble around the corner. He expected Leon to be a step behind her, however her only companion appeared to be her squirtle. She paused upon noticing him.

“Oh, err, hi,” she said. “It’s you. Your name’s Piers, right?”

“Yeah.” Piers managed to get answer out, despite once more feeling invisible barriers form around him. He returned Ramone so the zigzagoon didn’t start anything, though allowed Rezillo to stay out.

“Okay, phew,” continued Sonia. “I’m so bad with names, you know, like, I try really hard but it seems like I’m always forgetting or mixing people up.”

Her squirtle croaked and waved. “Bulkhead says hello, too. What’re you doing in here?”

“Sightseein’.”

“You must love rocks.”

“Yup. They’re my favourite things ever.”

“Right, and what’s the actual reason you’re in here?”

Piers narrowed his eyes. “Why do you care?”

“Well, I guess I don’t care that much, since you’re not exactly the warmest, but we’re going to be spending all summer together. I don’t know you like I do Leon.”

The truth was rather embarrassing; he was certain she would mock him for being so unused to the outdoors. Best that she left him alone.

“I was lookin’ for the monster,” he lied.

“What?”

“Yeah. Didn’t Mustard tell you? There’s a really big, scary pokémon hidin’ on this island somewhere, and I’m pretty sure I heard some loud noises comin’ from this cave before, so you might wanna get outta here. It could strike at any moment!”

Whatever reaction he expected, it wasn’t for her face to light up brighter than the sun.

“That’s amazing!” she exclaimed. “We have to find it!”

She seized his hand and pulled him further into the cave. He was faintly aware of their pokémon beside them, but his mind was much more preoccupied with how soft her hand felt and the fact _a girl was touching him._

“I – I – I was jokin’…”

She didn’t seem to hear him.

“Where is it, then? I don’t see anything!”

“There isn’t anythin’. I was havin' you on.”

She made a face. “Why would you do that?”

An answer failed him, so she grew more annoyed. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”

“I think I’m hilarious.” Sarcasm. A defence. He wasn’t sure what kind, but a defence all the same.

“Let me tell you something, Mr Funny Man, I’m not intimidated by you.”

_I’m not tryin’ to be intimidatin’! That much…_

This was what he thought, however he’d never admit it.

“Good for you,” he said instead.

“It _is._ Beating Leon doesn’t mean a thing; I’ve been a trainer longer than him. Next time we battle won’t be a draw!”

“Confidence. Great. World needs more of that.”

“As a matter of fact – oh my gosh!”

She raced past him in order to squat behind some nearby rocks. Her eyes were sparkling as she looked back at Piers and pointed ahead.

“It’s a cubone!” she said in a hushed-but-excited tone. “Those don’t exist on the mainland!”

Piers didn’t know why, but he copied her, settling down at her side. Indeed, a few feet in front was a small dinosaur-like creature wearing a skull. All of Sonia’s animosity towards Piers had evaporated; now, the cubone was the only being that mattered to her.

“I wish I had something to write notes on,” she whispered. “The rare pokémon are pretty much the reason Gran let me stay here.”

Piers sensed movement in the corner of his eye and pushed Sonia down seconds before a spinning bone would have taken their heads off. The bone circled back through the air and returned to the hand of a pokémon much like the cubone, only bigger and meaner; a marowak.

_Mummy’s not happy._

The marowak raised its club and ran at them.

“Use Water Gun, Bulkhead!” ordered a frantic Sonia.

Bulkhead spewed out a jet of foamy water. The jet struck the marowak dead on the chest, however its steps only faltered for a moment.

“Vine Whip!” Piers yelled, making a whipping gesture towards the marowak’s feet.

Rezillo’s vines lashed out at their target. The marowak sprang over them. Club held high, the Ground-type prepared to bring it down upon its enemies.

A flash of gold, and Mustard’s kommo-o was there, raising an arm to block the club with its scaly armour. The club bounced off the armour harmlessly and the marowak jumped back, recognition dawning in its eyes that quickly became panic. It turned and fled, grabbing its cubone baby as it retreated into the darkness. The pair of humans were left alone with their saviour.

“Guess it makes sense Mustard would have his pokémon follow us,” said Piers, after taking some breaths to try and steady his heart.

“Yeah,” agreed Sonia. “In case of incidents like that.”

More footsteps. Piers, Sonia, their pokémon and Mustard’s kommo-o all looked towards the sound, only for Leon to appear around the corner, Napalm perched on his shoulder.

“Fancy meeting you lot here!” he remarked. “And hey, what’s Mustard’s kommo-o doing? You run into some trouble? I’ve been having a hell of a time, me!”

He didn’t stop walking, passing by them. Sonia followed, and while Piers considered going back the other way, he ended up tagging along, too.

The tunnel opened to reveal a desert, of all things, albeit nothing like the sprawling swathes of sand Piers had read about. A wooden post jutted upwards only a few feet ahead. Tied around the end of the post was a shining silver ribbon. Leon snatched the ribbon and triumphantly held it aloft. “Another one found. Looks like I win!”

Tied around his arm were two other ribbons. If Piers was surprised by this, Sonia was flabbergasted.

“How?” she spluttered. “You don’t even know which way ‘west’ is!”

“All I had to do was run around _everywhere_ until I saw something shiny. Besides, I had Napalm’s help.”

With these words Leon darted off again. Sonia was hot on his trail, crying out that he would get lost in the cave.

Piers was the first to return to the dojo. Inside, Honey and the younger ones were finger-painting, having already finished their baking during the hour Piers, Leon and Sonia had waited for Mustard to set up the ribbon trial. Leon and Sonia arrived a few minutes after Piers.

“Lee, look!” said Hop. “Honey showed me what charmander turns into, so I painted it!”

Charmander apparently turned into a vaguely dragon-shaped orange blob. Leon told Hop it looked spot on nonetheless, to the latter’s joy.

Marnie pushed her painting towards Piers. “I tried to do what bulbasaur turns into.”

Bulbasaur, meanwhile, turned into a big blue blob with a vague plant shape on top.

“That looks fantastic, Marnie,” Piers told her. She responded with something close to a smile.

Mustard entered and asked to see how they had done. Piers and Sonia stood back while Leon approached Mustard and proudly displayed his three ribbons.

“I told you Lee would find them all!” cheered Hop.

“So it seems,” remarked Mustard. He grinned. “That’s that, then. I’m delighted to say that all three of you have failed the task!”

Not what Piers had expected, to say the absolute least, and Sonia was equally as stunned.

“What’re you on about?” blurted Leon, who looked as though he had been slapped.

“A shame, a shame to be sure. Ah, well, can’t say I didn’t expect it for your first go. Better pick up the pace tomorrow, though, or none of you will prove worthy at this rate!”

“Worthy of what?” Leon echoed Piers’s thoughts. “Master Mustard! Don’t walk away!”

Whatever it was would have to wait, it seemed. Piers didn’t dwell on it, and spent the remainder of the day in his own corner playing fetch with Ramone and Rezillo. Ramone got a bit grouchy whenever he had the ball and Rezillo came near, but Piers’s stern words kept him at bay. Leon was in a sour mood and refused to talk even to Hop and Sonia, remaining quiet as they all ate dinner together. Sonia stayed upstairs in her room when not eating with them.

Eventually, Piers asked if he could use the dojo’s phone. He dialled the orphanage’s number and asked to speak to his friends.

 _“Piers!”_ chorused the voices of Paul and Susie.

“How’s it goin’?”

“It’s okay,” came Paul’s reply.

“I really miss you!” chirped Susie.

“She ain’t kiddin’,” said Paul. “You’s all she’s talked about since you left. She fancies you so much!”

Paul yelped in pain and then devolved into laughter, which told Piers Susie had punched him. Piers was glad they couldn’t see the mildly uncomfortable look on his face: attention from girls was wonderful, but he preferred it from girls his age.

“How’re you and Marnie, anyway?” asked Paul.

“We’s fine, don’t worry about us. I’m more worried about you. What’ve you been up to?”

“The usual kinda stuff. Went and wandered round the marshes for a bit, then we went down to the beach. We wanted to go to the park, but Keith from Claremont Lane was there with his pancham. He’s a lot more frightenin’ when you’s not here…”

“Yeah, don’t mess with Keith. I’ll be back soon, alright, and then I’ll put him in his place.”

“Hope so. Anyway, matron’s shoutin’ somethin’, so we better go. Take care, Piers. Remember, whatever you’s doin’, we’s cheerin’ for you!”

Piers ended the call. Talking to his friends left him with a welcome feeling of comfort.

His attention was drawn to a photograph hanging on the wall. In the middle of a battlefield, a monstrous three-headed hydreigon rose above a familiar kommo-o. Stood back-to-back with the hydreigon was a gardevoir, which had one arm raised, a spiral of flickering flames coiled around this arm and reaching out towards a charging excadrill.

Commanding the hydreigon from one side of the field was a stone-faced Janis the Joyless. At Janis’s side was the gardevoir’s trainer, an elegant woman with a piercing gaze. Facing off with them was the younger Mustard, cape billowing dramatically. Piers felt stupid for not realising where Leon’s fascination with capes came from sooner.

“Quite a battle, that was,” said a voice Piers knew. It belonged to the present version of Mustard, who gazed at the photograph and thoughtfully stroked his beard. “I’m sure you recognise Janis, as cheerful as ever. Beside her is Opal the Wizard, the Fairy-type leader from Ballonlea, another good friend. Bonkers to think Opal remains a leader to this day. If every leader was as dedicated as her, the Major League would be undefeatable. You can’t see him in this photo, but fighting alongside me was Jacob, better known as Earthquake Jake, Wyndon’s Steel-type leader back then.”

There were other photographs on the wall; most of them depicted Mustard, his Fighting-type pokémon and the trophies they had won, though there was another of Janis scratching an umbreon behind the ears, and numerous faces Piers could only assume were more leaders from their era. For the first time he thought about how many leaders had been part of the Pokémon League over the years, and his mind struggled to comprehend the exact number.

From the way Mustard was looking at him, the old man seemed to be able to read his mind. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, boy. How much do you actually know about gyms and how they get started? Or how the League works in general?”

Piers shrugged. “Not as much as I probably should.”

“Gyms build up around strong trainers. Any trainer that goes out there and gains enough of a following can build off that following to establish themselves a gym. From that following comes other trainers, you see, who wish to train alongside their new leader and be endorsed by them so that they, too, can battle across the League. Most don’t end up founding their own gyms if they come from a town that already has one, mind you. The most long-established gyms have become symbolic of their towns, as have the types of pokémon they use. Motostoke loves Fire-types, for example, Hulbury’s all about Water and Circhester’s always had Ice leaders. Spikemuth’s Janis’s main preference was Dark-types. Good thing you already have one of those, eh?”

Piers looked down at Ramone’s ball. It really was coincidental, he wanted to say; they were strays that had found each other, and that was it. He stayed quiet, however.

“When most people refer to ‘the League’, they’re talking about the Major League, the best of the best, the cream of the crop, the eight most powerful leaders that only the truly talented are endorsed to face. The truth is, though, the League’s much bigger and more complex than that, divided into multiple smaller, local tourneys. I’m surprised you didn’t already know this, to be honest. Surely the marshlands area must have a local League?”

Piers shrugged again. “Maybe the other towns in the marshes do, but Spikemuth’s for gamblin’ addicts these days. That’s about it.”

“I see. Well, gyms all compete against each other through these various smaller tourneys for promotion, each aiming for the Major League. Every new gym must start from the bottom and work their way up. There’s no Dark-type gyms in Galar, currently. I checked. You’d gain plenty of attention for a Dark-type preference alone.”

“That’s fine, but Rezillo’s not a Dark-type, and I kinda always wanted to catch a toxel…”

“Nothing wrong with that; Janis herself was fond of Grass-types in addition to Dark ones. As long as your team’s main focus is on the Dark-type, you can get away with mixing in a few others. Provided you can make them get along, of course!”

It was a lot to take in. Piers had difficulty doing so. “I don’t know…”

“Don’t know what? That the sky is blue? That the wind blows, that leaves fall?”

“I don’t know if I can do it!” Piers hadn’t meant to say this much aloud, but the damned old codger had coaxed it out of him with his bothersome babble.

“Now that’s not true. You either know you can do it, or you know you can’t. There is nothing between. I can’t tell you which of those is true for you: only you can. And perhaps your sister can, too.”

The reminder of Marnie’s faith in Piers was enough to dispel his doubts for the time being. “Thank you, Mustard – I mean, Master Mustard.”

“Don’t mention it, my boy!”

A bit overwhelmed by Mustard showing so much support for him, Piers was about to walk away when he noticed something on a nearby table: a notepad. Picking it up, he looked back at Mustard. “Is anyone usin’ this?”

“If there’s nothing written in it, you can keep it.”

Piers did, however not for himself. He went up to Sonia’s room and knocked on her door. It slid back to reveal Sonia in pink cotton pyjamas.

“Err. Hi. Hello. I have, err, I found, err – here.” He held the notepad out to her. “You can use this to write stuff on. If you want.”

She took it from him. “Thanks, Piers. That’s kind of you." A smile. "Maybe you _can_ be warm sometimes.”

“More lukewarm, I guess.” He forced a laugh, though it sounded every bit as awkward as he felt. “I’ll go now.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow.”

Piers was able to nod back at her. He made it two more steps when she suddenly laughed, and he turned around to see she’d found the googly-eyed cubone he’d doodled on the first page.

“Very funny.”

“I thought so.”

_I’m thankin’ every deity ever you thought so, too._

He arrived at the room he shared with Marnie, breathing out a sigh of relief the second the door closed. Marnie was sat on one of two futon rolls. Piers settled onto his.

“Have you seen the bear?” Marnie asked him.

“What bear?”

“The bear.”

_Very helpful._

“You mean the one on the dojo sign?”

“I think so. I saw it when Honey took Hop and me for a walk. It was watchin’ us, but when it saw me lookin’ it ran away. I wanna find it again!”

“Have fun with that. How’s Hop? You gettin’ along with him?”

“He talks. A lot. He’s really loud.”

“Somethin’ he’s got in common with his brother, then.”

“Piers?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sleepy. Can you sing somethin’?”

“Sure.”

Softly, gently, he began to croon a lullaby. His sister curled up and closed her eyes. When he heard her breathing change, he closed his eyes himself.

The next day, Mustard set them another task; they had to chase down three dreepy. The second he announced this the dreepy come rocketing out from behind him and through the dojo doors. Leon shot after them like a bullet from a gun. Sonia was right behind him. Piers stumbled out a few seconds later, taking a deep breath before he set off after a different dreepy from the one they were chasing.

The dreepy were fast, little more than specks disappearing into the horizon, leading Piers to wonder what in the world Mustard had given them. He didn’t get far when his lungs exacted their revenge for all the smoke inhaled by reducing him to a coughing mess. Stopping, he fought to get his air back. Once he had, he used this moment of pause to think over what they were doing.

_This is the same task as yesterday; it’s just dressed up differently. The old man wants us to think about what we did wrong._

His mind went to the photograph he had seen of Mustard’s battle against Janis and Opal. Teams of trainers, working in tandem. There were three targets – one for each of them.

He ran back in the direction he’d seen Leon and Sonia go. It was Leon he found first, having evidently become separated from Sonia and now running around with his charmander. Upon seeing Piers, Leon stopped and fixed him with a smug grin.

“Sorry, but I found all the things yesterday, and I’m gonna find them all today!”

“That’s not what we’re meant to do!”

“How is it not? Stop trying to distract me!”

“Can you use your brain? You found the ribbons yesterday, and what happened? You were wrong! There’s three targets, and three of us. We each need to find one. This is about workin’ together!”

Leon's grin faltered. “You’re just saying that ‘cause you don’t want me to find everything!"

Piers could’ve torn his own hair out. “Fine. Be a moron. I’ll find Sonia, so at least her and me can pass this!”

Sonia wasn’t far from Leon. Thankfully, she proved willing to hear Piers out.

“That does make a lot of sense,” she said. “Alright, let’s find Leon first, and then we can go after the pokémon. Leon will listen to me. He only won’t listen to you ‘cause he’s mad you beat him.”

They found Leon in the same place as before. As Sonia has predicted, he actually did listen to her.

“Do you want to lose again, or not?” she asked.

Leon’s fists clenched.

“No,” he admitted.

So it was, they set out across the island as a trio. Leon ran alongside his charmander, while Sonia let out her yamper, Flash, who proceeded to bound all over and sniff everything. Piers hung back, keeping an eye out, but otherwise silent.

Flash began to bark. His attention was on a bush. The bush shuddered and one of the dreepy popped out. Piers moved towards it with a ball raised – only for Leon to step into his path, also with a ball raised, and for Sonia to bump into Leon. The dreepy saw its chance and sped away.

“What part of ‘working together’ was that?” grumbled Sonia.

“You should’ve let me get that one!” protested Leon.

As frustrated as Piers was, he forced himself to work out a plan based on what they had available. “Listen, Flash can paralyse the dreepy with his Nuzzle, can’t he? When one of them appears, have him do that, and then one of us can throw a ball. In turns. Leon, you go first, then Sonia, then me.”

As Piers expected, appealing to Leon’s ego by letting him go first seemed to work.

“Got it!” said the other teen. Sonia nodded along with him.

They found the dreepy again hiding behind a rock. This time, Piers and Leon stayed put and allowed Sonia to take control of the situation, ordering Flash to shock the dreepy as he had Rezillo. When the dreepy dropped, Leon threw a ball.

The second dreepy they found zooming in circles at the entrance of a dense forest. The same pattern played out, only this time it was Sonia who caught it. Into the forest they trekked in search of their third target, something Piers regretted when the close, humid air descended upon him.

He hadn’t liked the forest when he’d come through the previous day, and he didn’t like it then. Every direction looked the same to him; nothing but thick trees and hundreds of exotic plants he couldn’t name, like being on an alien planet. They would probably never have found their target if not for Flash, who brought them to a clearing where the final dreepy waited.

After Flash had taken the dreepy down, Piers readied a ball, only to hesitate as the undergrowth next to him rustled. Something large and red burst forth with a sharp stinger pointed at his throat.

“Watch out!” called Leon. _“Ember,_ Napalm!”

Napalm spat out a fireball towards Piers’s attacker. It hit the ground, thrashing and screeching. When the flames extinguished, Piers saw that it was a venipede. The wounded venipede scuttled back into the undergrowth.

“Thanks,” said Piers to Leon.

“The dreepy’s getting away!” exclaimed Sonia.

They chased it out of the forest and into a field. A tremor rumbled through the ground that almost had all of them on their faces. Their eyes were pulled towards a pillar of light, which they discovered emerged from a deep, dark hole ringed by stones. There were other holes like it dotted across the island, but none glowed as this one did, and no others made the hairs on Piers’s body stand on end. He could feel the power radiating from it like an electric tingle across his skin.

“It’s a Dynamax Den,” observed Sonia. “Did the dreepy go in?”

“What’re we waiting for?” Leon said.

He tried to jump into the den, except there was a glimmer of gold, and once more Mustard’s kommo-o leapt onto the scene, this time not alone: a mienshao was with it. The kommo-o dived into the den. Mustard’s mienshao remained in place to block the trio.

From deep below there came a loud _boom._ Another rumble nearly knocked Piers off his feet. As he recovered, the light pillar slowly thinned until it disappeared.

The kommo-o sprang out of the den and landed in front of them. The remaining dreepy was tucked under its arm, roughed up and dazed. The kommo-o lowered the dreepy to the ground. Piers threw a ball to capture the final dreepy, however he didn’t miss the instant in which Mustard’s kommo-o reached up to clutch its own shoulder.

_The dreepy managed to hurt it down there._

With all three pokémon secured, they returned to the dojo.

“Congratulations!” beamed Mustard. “This time, you really did pass! I’m thrilled that you were able to figure out your true goal. Pokémon journeys are as much about coordination and teamwork as they are winning battles, be it with other trainers or the individual pokémon in your party. Now, return the dreepy to me, and I’ll release them back into the wild.”

Piers and Sonia handed theirs over. Leon didn’t.

“Can I keep mine, please?” he asked.

“You _are_ the only one with just one pokémon currently, so I don’t see why not.”

“Nice. I’m gonna call him Ballista!” 

Later, Piers was headed up to his room when a voice stopped him.

“Oi, Piers…”

It was Leon. For once, the other teen’s usual grin and cocky air was absent. “We wouldn’t have succeeded if you hadn’t figured out the real goal. Sorry for being a bit of a dickhead about it.”

Piers hadn’t thought Leon would say that. He appreciated it, truly, relaxing somewhat. “It’s okay.”

“Yeah. So thank you.”

“No problem.”

Leon’s grin reappeared. “I’m still gonna trounce you next time we battle. That’s a promise.”

Piers felt somewhat more comfortable due to the other teen’s gratitude; enough to banter back, at least. “Keep dreamin’. Typical Wyndon arrogance, right there. You Wyndies are all the same.”

“At least where I’m from is on the map, you bumpkin. And my parents weren’t siblings.”

Piers chuckled. “Alright, so you do have some balls, then.”

“Master Mustard’s got the telly set up if you want to come play games with Sonia and me. He said we can, since we passed today.”

It took Piers a moment to realise that Leon actually wanted him around. He nodded. “Sure.”

With that, he let Leon lead him into the living room section of the dojo. Sonia was sat on the sofa already.

“Wondered where you went,” she said, then her eyes widened at the sight of Piers. “Wow. Miracles do happen.”

Piers dropped down next to her and reached for a controller. Honey entered the room, then, alongside Hop and Marnie, both of whom immediately pounced upon their brothers.

“Come on, Lee, let me play!” Hop badgered Leon.

“I want to play,” said Marnie, grasping for Piers’s controller.

“You can have a go after me!” Leon replied as he held his controller out of reach.

Piers had the same reaction with Marnie, and there was a moment in which he and Leon looked at each other, and for just a second he felt an understanding pass between them.

Perhaps he would be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or would he?
> 
> While in the Isle of Armour dlc itself Mustard implies Leon went through the exact same trials the player does, I changed it up 'cause it'd be boring to see the same thing beat-for-beat.
> 
> Also, probably goes without saying, but Hyde isn't around because he hasn't been born yet.


	5. Chapter 5

That summer played out differently than Piers could ever have anticipated. Mustard had them run laps, climb rocks and do push-ups until they were red-faced and wheezing.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Piers panted after one lap too many, doubled over and gripping his knees.

A crinkle alerted him to the patch stuck to his arm. He scowled at this memory of its origin; ever since Mustard had caught him having a smoke outside the dojo, he’d been forced to wear such nicotine patches.

_Who the hell does that old man think he is? Draggin’ me out here to do all this crazy shit, and tryin’ to tell me how to be…_

“Excellent job, Leon, my boy!”

Mustard stood ahead, showering Leon with adoration for being the first to complete his laps around the dojo. Something inside Piers twisted. He tried to ignore it, telling himself he didn’t care, that there was no possible way he wanted Mustard’s praise, except later that day when they were training their pokémon, Ramone and Rezillo felled a huge krabby and Mustard patted Piers on the shoulder.

“You’re getting better all the time!” Mustard said, with real, undeniable warmth.

It was a warmth Piers was so unfamiliar with. He thought the old man had to be mocking him, that he was about to laugh and say ‘sike’, except he didn’t. The idea that Mustard cared about Piers enough to truly show him such warmth was a struggle to wrap his understanding around, leaving him blank on how to respond.

_No one’s ever given a damn about me…_

As a result, Piers pushed himself harder and harder, no matter how much his lungs would make him cough. Leon certainly noticed when Piers overtook him, if the cry from behind that Piers had no chance was any indication. That moment on, they were always neck-and-neck no matter what they did, exchanging glares all the while. Sonia was never far behind either of them, sometimes even ahead. When she ran, certain parts of her anatomy would also move, which Piers approved of very much.

Piers’s pokémon reflected his drive to push himself further by pushing themselves more, too, which he discovered when Mustard battled the trio himself using a combination of mienfoo and shinx.

Leon went first, managing to overcome the mienfoo owing to his dreepy merely passing through its attacks, though the dreepy succumbed to the shinx’s single Bite. Napalm came out next and roasted the shinx with several rapid Ember shots.

“Yeah!” Leon hooted, punching the air. “Damn right we won! Although that wasn’t a real battle against Master Mustard…”

Sonia was second, starting with Flash, who succeeded in paralysing the mienfoo. The mienfoo powered through its paralysis in order to deliver a strike that took Flash down. Bulkhead was able to finish the mienfoo off, but couldn’t handle a super effective Spark.

“Blast it,” Sonia groaned. “Going to have to train more.”

When Piers’s turn came, Rezillo took a hard slap from the mienfoo and hit the ground. He was about to recall her when her vines shot out and coiled around the mienfoo’s waist. She hoisted it into the air and slammed it back down. Her vines unwound and the mienfoo stayed motionless.

Piers could see her stance wavering, however, so he recalled her and sent Ramone out to face the shinx. Ramone took the shinx’s fangs in his side, holding firm in order to deliver a crushing Headbutt right back. As the shinx flinched, Ramone kept coming at it with his claws until it dropped.

Piers was relieved, but before he could say anything, a glow overtook Ramone. It was a bright, white glow that consumed his entire being, which began to shift and change before Piers’s eyes. Ramone grew longer, thinner. When the glow faded, he was a new being entirely.

_A linoone!_

Ramone barrelled towards Piers. The linoone sprang – and licked Piers across the face with his slobbery tongue. Piers laughed joyfully, the most he had in recent memory. “Look at you, you magnificent git!”

He saw Sonia and Leon both transfixed by what had happened.

“Nice one!” said Sonia.

“He looks badass,” said Leon.

Mustard walked over to Piers, beaming with approval. “See? Keep striving to get better, and you and your pokémon will.”

Piers nodded. He could get used to these good feelings, he decided, and he suspected Ramone was the same.

Throughout their training, they would catch glimpses of Marnie and Hop around the island with Honey. From what Piers witnessed, Marnie seemed nervous whenever Hop came close, though Hop was bright and talkative, and more and more she began to talk back, if only a little. Marnie was always relaxed when interacting with Honey, however, and Piers swore he saw her smile once or twice.

“I saw the bear again,” said Marnie one time they were sat in their room. “I was pickin’ flowers and I noticed it was in the bushes. I was kinda scared at first, but then I thought the bear looked scared, too, so I held a flower out to it, and then it took the flower from me! It ran away when Honey came over, though.”

“It must like you.”

“You think I could catch it?”

“I dunno. Maybe. It’s probably safer that I catch it for you, though.”

“You gotta catch it if you see it!”

“Alright, I will!”

As promised, he looked out for any sort of unusual bear pokémon, but saw no hint of one until an incident within the dojo itself. When not training themselves or their pokémon, the trio would play videogames together, or sometimes simply watch television. It turned out Mustard owned a few VHS tapes of his past battles, a box Leon raved over as though it was buried treasure.

“We’re going to watch all of these!” he announced as he brought the box over and began rummaging inside. “Ooh, ooh, here’s when Master Mustard fought Pryce, an Ice-type leader from Johto!”

He stuffed the tape into its player and proceeded to give a running commentary of the battle as it unfolded before them. “Watch them go: weavile’s fast, but mienshao’s fast, too! Oh, what a good hit! No kommo-o in this fight, ‘cause she was at a disadvantage, so here’s luxray instead! How does your dewgong like the taste of that Wild Charge, Pryce?”

Piers could’ve done without Leon’s commentary, as his eardrums attested, although Sonia smiled at Leon’s enthusiasm.

Pryce’s mamoswine pounded a massive foot against the ground, sending out vibrations Mustard’s luxray couldn’t possibly have avoided. As his luxray crumpled before him, Mustard folded his arms and guffawed. He recalled his fallen pokémon and readied another ball.

“Get in, here he comes! The strongest pokémon Mustard ever had – Urshifu!”

The light from Mustard’s ball took the form of a mighty bear with biceps that could crush steelix skulls. It was much fiercer-looking than the bear on the dojo’s sign.

 _“Surging Strikes!”_ ordered the Mustard on screen.

Urshifu swept across the battlefield and rained down a waterfall of blows so fast Piers didn’t see them. The mamoswine certainly felt them, though, crashing down harder than a malfunctioning plane.

The recording ended. Leon faced Piers and Sonia. “Master Mustard was once a student here too, a long, long time ago. Urshifu chose him above everyone else to be his partner. Don’t you get it? We’re the first students here in years. Why do you think Mustard talked about us proving worthy? One of us has to – and that’s going to be _me.”_

“Mustard could’ve told us this himself,” remarked Sonia.

On the outside Piers was calm, but on the inside his mind reeled like a fishing rod. For the life of him he couldn’t imagine Marnie being brave enough to approach Urshifu alone. He tried asking her about it later, her response being confusion when he described Urshifu to her.

“No, it wasn’t like that,” she said. “It wasn’t very big.”

So, the question remained, what pokémon had Marnie encountered?

That night, Piers felt thirsty, thus he wandered down to the lower level in search of water.

“If only I could have found four of them,” came Mustard’s voice, freezing Piers in his tracks. He backed up onto the stairs and listened.

“Though I didn’t even mean to train three at first,” Mustard continued. “I was originally going to train only Leon, as a favour to his grandfather.”

“So, why did you take in the other two?” asked another voice, an old woman’s voice, which sounded as though it was over a phone.

“The Spikemuth boy and Magnolia’s little girl seemed in such desperate need of direction, it would’ve been cruel to ignore them.”

“You always were soft-hearted, though I would have felt much the same.”

“It’s for the better that there’s more of them, anyway. Every time a new kubfu is born, it means Galar may soon have need of the Royal Quartet’s power. If there truly is danger on the horizon, we must assemble new heroes to wield the Armour, Crown, Sword and Shield. You and I are too old now, and Janis and Jacob are dead. That’s why I’m disappointed I couldn’t find a fourth.”

“I’d prefer to choose my own successor, to be honest, so it’s fine.”

“Do you plan to do that next century, or the one after?”

 _“Ha!_ Unlike you, some of us are too committed to their jobs to go gallivanting around the world for years. Alas, it’s getting late, so I’d best get my beauty sleep. Take care, Mustard.”

“Take care, Opal.”

Thirst forgotten, Piers retreated back to his room. He fell onto his futon and stared into space, his mind replaying the conversation on an endless loop. He should’ve known there was more to his training, but what did any of it mean? What was a Royal Quartet? The question echoed unanswered as he slipped into a numb sleep.

The following day, Mustard issued them a new trial.

“Your next task is an important one indeed!” he said.

“Don’t worry, Master Mustard,” replied an ever-confident Leon. “I’ll take care of it no problem!”

“You don’t even know what it is, yet! Goodness gracious. Have some patience. The task is as follows: somewhere on the island you will find a special kind of mushroom. These mushrooms are almost as big as you, and bright red with spiral patterns. You can’t possibly miss them! I want you to gather as many of these mushrooms as you can find and put them into these baskets I have for you here. Now, chop chop!”

Off they went. Their quest took them to the forest, which they all agreed was the most logical destination.

“Sonia, c’mere!” called Leon. He pointed towards the trees. “Look at that pokémon! It’s kinda like morpeko and pikachu, isn’t it?”

Flitting from branch to branch was indeed a squirrel-like pokémon with a strong resemblance to the two mentioned. Sonia darted to Leon’s side and pulled out her notepad.

Piers looked around for a pokémon that would get Sonia’s attention, only to catch sight of a faint red glow instead.

“Think I’ve found our mushrooms,” he said.

The mushrooms were exactly as Mustard had described them, although up close Piers thought of them more as radioactive mutant mushrooms. As he grabbed hold of one, he felt a tingle emitting from it exactly like that of the Max Den, which made him hesitate for a moment. It wasn’t hurting him, though, so he carried on.

“Like my new hat?” asked Leon as he placed a mushroom over his head.

“I mean, it looks like a dick,” snickered Piers. “So it suits you!”

“You boys,” said Sonia, rolling her eyes.

When they finished loading up, they ventured back to the dojo.

“What’re they for?” asked Sonia.

“That’s not something you need to worry about just yet,” answered Mustard. “Go on, the rest of the day is yours.”

Piers spent the next few hours training Ramone and Rezillo in the field outside the dojo. Sonia appeared eventually and greeted him.

“Hey,” he greeted back. “Where’s Leon?”

“No idea. Training his dream team somewhere. I’m gonna do the same.”

She continued past him and disappeared into the undergrowth.

Some time later, a thunderous thudding sound brought Piers to a standstill. He craned his head in search of the source and found it was a helicopter, sleek and black, which nearly blew him over as it touched down. Its doors slid aside and a man stepped out. For a second, Piers thought it was Steel Peony, Galar’s champion. This man was clean-shaven, however, and had a full head of hair. The suit he wore must have cost more than every house in Spikemuth combined.

“I like what he’s done with the place,” the man said, looking around. He saw Piers and smiled, though Piers thought his smile had too many teeth in it. “Hello, there. You must be one of the dojo’s students!”

Piers fought off the urge to make a sarcastic remark about stating the obvious. “I am.”

“Fascinating. Where might you be from, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Kanto. My name is Professor Oak.”

The man raised an eyebrow, then let out a shoulder-rolling laugh. “Well, Mr Oak, it’s an honour to finally meet you. I want to know all about how you’ve improved the PokéDex once I’m done talking to the master here.”

With this, the man carried on towards the dojo. Sonia came back over to Piers, her eyes widening as she watched the man go.

“Oh, wow,” she gasped. “It’s really him!”

“Who?”

“You mean you don’t know? That’s Rose, the man in charge of Macro Cosmos!”

Macro Cosmos. The name tugged at Piers’s memory: it was a corporation of some kind, he was sure. Beyond this, he knew little of it, though he felt a creeping sense of unease.

Mustard came out of the dojo as Rose neared it and extended a hand for a shake. “You’ve never been one to make a quiet entrance, have you, Rosie?”

“Mustard! It’s been too long!”

Piers headed off in the direction of the beach. Sonia followed him and asked where he was going, to which he replied he was going to train more.

“At least let me train with you.”

They battled each other on the sands, Ramone against Flash. Ramone leered down at the much smaller yamper, though to Flash’s credit, he stood his ground. This didn’t last long, as Ramone shot forward with lightning speed and sent Flash flying in a single lunge.

“Do the trick, Flash!” Sonia ordered.

Flash rolled around the sand, kicking up a cloud Ramone ran right into. The linoone winced and pawed at his eyes. Seizing his chance, Flash jumped at Ramone and paralysed him like Rezillo and Mustard’s mienfoo.

_She got that trick from Ramone doing that to Napalm. I don’t think yamper even learns Sand Attack!_

“You can fight the paralysis, Ramone!” Piers yelled. “Use Night Slash!”

Shadows swirled around Ramone’s claws seconds before he swung them around in an arc. The shadows whipped out, catching Flash full on. This time, the yamper didn’t get back up, and Sonia returned him.

“You really are good at this,” she said. “I have another pokémon, though, and I’ve been training him _lots!”_

When she released her second ball, Piers expected to see her squirtle, so he was caught off-guard when the pokémon that appeared was a darker shade of blue, sporting sharper fangs and bigger ears.

“Whoa, what? Since when did you evolve him?”

“Since just now, actually. Bulkhead’s more of a fighter than Flash is. Though I haven’t had them out of their balls at the same time yet, so I guess Flash has kinda fallen behind…”

Bulkhead ran at Ramone, retracted into his shell and let momentum send him careening into Ramone’s side. Ramone sprawled across the sand, but righted himself as Bulkhead was upon him again. Ramone’s claws left marks across the wartortle’s cheek. Bulkhead retaliated with a spray of foam.

Piers returned Ramone and sent out Rezillo. His bulbasaur was startled by Bulkhead’s new appearance.

“It’s okay, Rezillo,” Piers encouraged. “You might not be evolved, but you still have the advantage!”

Rezillo steadied herself. Before she could do anything, the sound of helicopter blades once more interrupted them. They paused their battle, returning their pokemon to watch Rose’s helicopter disappear into the sky.

“Wonder what that was about,” said Sonia.

“I don’t want to know,” grunted Piers.

 _“Piers!”_ chirped the familiar voice of Marnie. She was running over to him from the dojo. “It’s the bear! I saw it right –”

There came a screech that stung like hot knives being stabbed into Piers’s ears. A mass of black feathers swooped down from above and seized Marnie in hooked talons. It was a mandibuzz, wings spread wide as it soared over the dojo towards the mountains.

_“Marnie!”_

Never had Piers run so fast in his life. His heart was going to explode out of his chest. He took a shortcut through a cave, where he found Leon training his charmander and dreepy.

“You alright?” Leon asked. “Napalm’s getting close to evolving, I can feel –”

Piers blasted past him. Leon was good at keeping up, and together they emerged from the other end of the cave into the field where one of the towers loomed among cliffs. The mandibuzz could be seen flying towards the tower. Sonia caught up to them as they dashed up a series of steps carved into the cliffs.

“I told Mustard what happened,” she cried, though Piers hardly heard her.

At the top of the steps, the mandibuzz perched on the side of the tower. Marnie clung to its claws for dear life, so white with terror it was as though all the blood had been drained out of her.

Piers threw the first ball he touched, not even caring that it was Rezillo who appeared rather than Ramone. Sonia unleashed Bulkhead and Leon pointed Napalm forward.

“Vine Whip!”

“Water Gun!”

“Ember!”

Rezillo’s vines smacked the mandibuzz, Bulkhead’s watery jet crashed into its chest, and Napalm’s flames set part of its feathers alight. The mandibuzz shook all of these attacks off.

A new figure came shooting out from behind some nearby rocks, one leg primed to strike the mandibuzz across the face. Spittle flew from the mandibuzz’s beak as it recoiled and let Marnie go.

Piers hurled himself forward to catch Marnie in his arms. Her rescuer landed next to him. It was a bear, no bigger than Marnie herself, its face matching that of the dojo’s sign. A flower was tucked behind one of its ears.

The mandibuzz dropped to their level, blotting out the sun. It pulled a wing back – and then stopped, seeing something behind them that made its angry expression turn to as much fear as it had inflicted on Marnie. Mustard’s kommo-o and mienshao rushed past Piers. Like the marowak before it, the mandibuzz decided not to challenge them and took off out of sight.

Piers gently lowered Marnie to the ground. She hugged him, then ran over to the bear and hugged it.

“Is everyone unharmed?” asked Mustard as he reached them. “Blimey. You turn your back for one minute and everything goes to hell in a handbasket. And Kubfu! What a surprise to see you!”

By Kubfu he could only have meant the bear pokémon. The bear paid no attention to Mustard, more interested in dusting Marnie down and then clasping her hands with a concerned sound. Mustard watched this while stroking his beard.

“Well, I never,” he mused. “Could it be that the one to wield the Armour was under our noses all along?”

“That can’t be right!” objected Leon.

“What armour?” demanded Piers. His adrenaline was still running high and he was in no mood for Mustard being cryptic. “You need to start explainin’ yourself, old man!”

“Yes, I suppose I owe you one of those by now.”

Mustard approached the tower and rested a hand against it. “It’s said that in ancient times, a fighting order from the Far East settled on this island and constructed the Towers of Darkness and Waters. From that moment forward they would train all comers in their art, and a select few among them would be chosen by the order’s guardian pokémon to wield its power. That pokémon is known as Urshifu, the evolved form of Kubfu, which you see before you now. Decades ago, I was one of those chosen, though I trained in the Tower of Waters over there.”

He pointed towards the tower by the beach, which was tall enough for them to see.

“Kubfu are born into the world very rarely, historically most often in times of war. Mine was the first to be born in centuries. I didn’t expect there to be another born so soon, but when it was, I knew I had to find someone worthy of being its trainer. Sadly, the Master Dojo had fallen into decay during my time travelling around the world, and I blame myself for not doing quite as much as I could have to keep it going in my younger days. My own urshifu died of wounds sustained in my last battle as champion, and out of grief I wanted to distance myself. It’s taken me some time to get the dojo functioning. I thought perhaps one of you three would prove worthy of being the new urshifu’s trainer, yet it seems fate has a funny sense of humour.”

Marnie giggled as she and Kubfu played pat-a-cake, her trauma mercifully forgotten. Mustard approached them, at which Kubfu held an arm out to protect Marnie from him. Turning back to the trio, Mustard shook his head. “I’m afraid that settles it. Kubfu has clearly chosen Marnie!”

Leon stammered hopelessly; “But – but…”

Piers couldn’t deny it; he felt similarly disappointed. His greatest chance to prove himself and earn Mustard’s approval had been snatched away before he’d understood what it was, by Marnie of all people, who hadn’t trained as he and the others had. It was difficult to feel too much ire towards Marnie given what she’d just been through, however, and for all Piers was disappointed, his older brother instinct kicked in and he shot Leon a warning look. _“Oi.”_

“I’m not gonna do anything, mate. Fair play to your sister. She’ll probably be a serious trainer one day with an urshifu on her side. Just wish there was another one for Hop.”

“Most unexpected indeed,” said Mustard. “Marnie’s a bit too young to undergo my training, I’m afraid, so she’ll have to come back in a few years. Still, the three of you have other things to continue working towards. Let’s get back to it!”

So it was, they returned to the dojo, Marnie holding hands with Kubfu all the way. She introduced Kubfu to Hop, who eagerly fawned over Kubfu. After this, the three were inseparable.

At last, that summer drew to a close. Piers, Leon and Sonia gathered in the middle of the dojo. Their pokémon were in their balls, with the exception of Leon’s Napalm, who swished his new charmeleon tail.

“Things didn’t turn out quite as planned,” said Mustard. “Normally, I would’ve had you all battle again to decide which of you was most worthy of Kubfu, but Kubfu decided his partner on his own. Nonetheless, you were here for more than just Kubfu, and I’d say you’ve shown your worth in that regard. As a result, I present you with endorsements.”

He handed them each a slip of paper stamped with the Pokémon League’s emblem and signed with his signature. Piers’s jaw dropped when he saw which specific League the endorsement was for.

“This is for the Major League!” exclaimed Sonia.

“Naturally!” responded Mustard. “If you three want to be the best you can be, you ought to start at the best level. I believe you have it in you, and that does include you, Sonia. It’s time you found your own way, instead of doing what your grandmother expects you to.”

“Of course we have it in us!” crowed Leon. “I wouldn’t want it any other way. The Major League is home to the strongest trainers in Galar; Man of Fire Kabu, Melony the Ice Cold Professional, Opal the Wizard, and right at the end, the champion himself, Steel Peony. We can’t prove how strong _we_ are if we don’t defeat them!”

“No pressure or anything,” sighed Sonia. “We have to promise to meet again at the opening ceremony.”

“Of course, Sonia,” said Leon. “There isn’t anyone else I’d rather travel with. And you, Piers! We’re going to battle again once we have badges under our belts.”

Piers smirked. “Sure thing, if you’s addicted to losin’.”

Leon smirked right back. “Losing to you the first time gave me a good idea of what to do and where to go. I don’t want to battle you until I know we’ve both improved a lot. If you’re as good at battles as you are at fighting games, it won’t be too hard, anyway!”

“Tch, I ain’t the one who kept walkin’ off the stages.”

“You’re both forgetting I had the most wins,” interjected Sonia.

“Because we let you,” said Leon.

“Yeah,” agreed Piers. “It’d be rude not to let the girl win every now and again.”

“Oh, shut it!” Sonia moved to half-heartedly shove them, which they laughed at.

Mustard laughed along with them.

“Alright, go change back into your normal clothes,” he said. “Those dojo uniforms are expensive, you know!”

Sonia and Leon headed off to the changing rooms. Piers hesitated. As the realisation he was about to leave sunk in, gratitude and sadness welled up inside him like lava within a volcano. He used every ounce of willpower to hold them back, but he could feel his eyes watering.

“Master Mustard, I – I just wanna say…” His dam broke and he threw his arms around Mustard in the tightest hug he’d given anyone. It didn’t matter to him if Mustard smelled old. Tears flowed down his cheeks. “Thank you for helpin’ me!”

He almost wanted to ask if he could stay. Marnie wouldn’t object to staying with Honey and Kubfu, he knew. He remembered his friends back home in Spikemuth, though, and his vow to make Spikemuth a better place.

Most prominently, he remembered his father, the man last seen abandoning all that he was supposed to protect.

Mustard hugged Piers back. “You’ve come a long way, son. Janis would be proud of you. I know I am. All that’s left is for you to go the furthest you can.”

“I will, I swear! Err, can I ask you somethin’, though?”

“Go ahead!”

“Is your name seriously Mustard?”

It was a question Piers had been holding back asking for the entire summer, and with all his emotions spilling out he couldn’t keep it in anymore either.

Mustard blinked, clearly blindsided, then chuckled. “What cheek! As a matter of fact, it’s a nickname, which I got after I once ate an entire jar of mustard when I was younger than your sister. My real name is for me to know. Perhaps I’ll tell you it one day, but that’s after you’ve done what you have to do!”

Together with Leon and Sonia, Piers left his uniform behind, packed up his belongings and made for the taxi station. Marnie asked if she could bring Kubfu and was most upset when informed she couldn’t.

“One day we’ll come back, okay, and then you can see if Kubfu wants to travel with you.”

Marnie cuffed her eyes and nodded. She gave Kubfu a last cuddle before parting with him, which he looked equally sad about as he watched them go from the dojo’s doorway. He stood next to Honey and waved alongside her. Marnie waved back until they were out of sight.

At the station, the group bid each other goodbye for the time being.

“See you later, mate,” said Leon. “You better not chicken out! I need more rivals to make my pokémon stronger.”

“Same here,” said Sonia. “We never did finish our rematch on the beach that time.”

“I ain’t backin’ down for anythin’,” replied Piers. “You two better not, either.”

“Bye, Hop,” Marnie called to him.

 _“Bye, Marnie!”_ Hop called at twice the volume.

Piers and Marnie’s Flying Taxi departed from the Isle of Armour. Piers wasn’t as fearful as he had been during the ride there, his mind too focused on the paper in his hand. He didn’t look back at the island, even if he wanted to. There was no looking back now.

The Gym Challenge awaited him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, surprise, we're going a step further on the Alternate Canon front and setting this in a version of SwSh where Urshifu and Calyrex are tied into the base game's lore and story. This is a world where all four legendaries would be needed to stop Eternatus at the end. The third version that will never be, if you like. 
> 
> This means I've rewritten Urshifu, Mustard and the Isle of Armour's lore a bit. Mustard's own kubfu/urshifu is the pokemon that died when he lost his title and the dojo/towers existed long before him.
> 
> Canonically, Leon was endorsed by Rose, but I think it's better for this story that Mustard endorses all three of his students. The story is very much not over, as now the Gym Challenge beckons...


	6. Chapter 6

Piers wasn’t home a week before the Gym Challenge breathed down his neck. Sleep grew more and more a stranger, that which he did manage to attain brief and restless.

He refused to let his nerves show in front of Marnie and his friends, though, no matter how heavy his eyelids were becoming. As far as they had to know, he was looking forward to it.

On Spikemuth Promenade, he sat with them around a table next to some food stands, before them a sheet of paper and several pens. Screwed up, rejected pieces of paper blew around their feet.

“It’s gotta be black and magenta,” said Piers. “Those are Spikemuth’s colours. We can keep that much.”

“Why don’t you use Janis’s old emblem?” asked Susie. “Not that I know what it was…”

“Because Janis was Janis, and we’s us. This is for _our_ gym, ‘cause you lot are gonna be my trainers, and Marnie can probably take over one day. It’s gotta be somethin’ we all like, you get me?”

“How about this?” said Paul, grabbing a magenta pen and proceeding to scribble away. “In Kalos there was once this legendary Dark-type death bird. I read about it in a book!”

“Dweeb,” teased Susie.

“Just ‘cause I know how to read,” Paul retaliated. “There we go. It looked kinda like that.”

Paul had scrawled a Y-shape that Piers supposed was somewhat bird-like if he squinted. He glanced at Marnie, remembering her unfortunate encounter with the mandibuzz. “I dunno if birds are a good idea. Maybe rotate it a bit.”

“Put teeth on it!” cried Susie, taking the pen. “Now it’s a mouth.”

“Now it’s a mess,” said Piers with a frown.

“I like it,” said Marnie.

“Guess we can go with this, then. Behold! The emblem of the reborn Spikemuth Gym!” He lifted the paper up for the others to see. Lowering it again, thought lines formed on his face. “We need to name our gym, too, don’t we? Though there’s never gonna be more than our gym in Spikemuth.”

“The Spikemuth Slaughterers!” suggested Susie.

“Spikemuth Carnage,” suggested Paul.

“Mm, good, good, but they still don’t feel right…”

“I got one,” said Marnie. Everyone looked at her with bated breath. “Spikemuth Megamurderkillers!”

Paul and Susie practically laughed off their bench. Piers shook his head in disbelief. “You’s are all psychos. Spikemuth Psychos don’t sound too bad, either, but come on. They probably won’t let us get away with any of that!”

“Since when did you care what people let us get away with?” huffed Susie. “Who are you, and what have you done with Piers?”

“Eh, we can forget about the name for now. Plenty of time to come up with one. I’ll tell you somethin’ right here, though. When I come back, all of this…” Piers made a sweeping gesture across the Promenade. “All of this will belong to us.”

The Promenade’s usual throngs of gamblers and drunks carried on oblivious to this staked claim. Behind them was a pirate-themed arcade by the name of Reef Island, distinguished by the enormous skull above its sign. Lights reflected in the skull’s eyes, which made them appear to be burning as it glared down at him as though enraged by his gall. He wasn’t sure where it came from, himself, why his veins were suddenly electrified by an urge to fight.

“What’re you scrotes doin’ here?”

They looked up to see the most unwelcome sight of another group of kids. The speaker and leader was a boy a head taller than Piers with a broken nose and shaved hair. In front of this boy, a pancham eyed Piers and cracked its knuckles.

“Piss off, Keith!” snapped Susie.

Unfazed, Piers stood and walked between his group and Keith’s. He said nothing, but fixed Keith with a glacial stare.

“Look who it is,” sneered Keith. “Thought you’d run off and got eaten by a wild perrserker or somethin’, Piers.”

“You don’t wanna do this. Trust me.”

“Shut your stupid face. Better yet, Tom-Tom can shut it for you!”

The pancham charged at Piers. It didn’t make it. Ramone materialised and caught its throat between his long, evolved claws like a garrotte. The pancham was allowed a second for fear to set in before Ramone tightened his grasp. Keith made a run at them, so Ramone let the pancham go and catapulted his head into it with enough force to send it crashing into Keith’s path. Keith tripped and landed flat on his front.

Piers drove his foot into Keith’s face hard enough to break his nose all over again. As the other boy went flopping back, Piers’s eyes were wilder than his linoone’s.

“Get outta here.”

Keith and his cronies fled with their tails between their legs. Piers’s friends gazed at him and Ramone in astonishment. Even Marnie did.

One more fitful sleep and the day of the opening ceremony arrived. Marnie sat on her bed and watched Piers pack his supplies. The League had sent him a set of camping gear plus various potions and status healers and instructions on what to do in order to register as a challenger. He fit it all into his bag via the use of storage capsules, devices similar to Poké Balls that shrunk down and absorbed items much as Poké Balls did to pokémon, which the League had also supplied.

“Don’t talk to any weirdoes while I’m gone, okay?” he instructed Marnie. “Remember to brush your teeth twice a day.”

“I _know._ We’ve been through this fifty times already!”

“I’m makin’ sure!”

“Will you really make things better?”

Piers didn’t know. Even so, he walked over and crouched before Marnie, looking her in the eyes with maximum seriousness. “Marnie, listen to me. I promise you, no matter what happens, I will make things right for us. When I’m champion, no one will dare fuck with us ever again.”

“You said champion. I thought you were gonna be a Gym Leader?”

“I – I _did_ say champion, didn’t I?” Piers was taken aback by his own words. He wondered if Leon’s endless chatter about being the next champion had rubbed off on him. “It doesn’t matter. Point is, nothin’ is ever gonna be the same for us.”

“You can’t be the champion, anyway, ‘cause I’m gonna be the champion!” After a beat, Marnie quietly added; “You should definitely go for it, though.”

Piers smiled at her optimism, then reached into his hoodie. “Before I leave, I got one more thing for you.” He pulled a Poké Ball and held it out to her.

Marnie took it and clicked the button, squealing incomprehensibly when its light became a tiny yellow pokémon with pink cheeks. Her squeal awoke the pokémon, which looked up at her blearily.

“It’s not Kubfu,” said Piers. “But I remembered how much you like morpeko. This one’s only a baby, so you gotta make sure she drinks milk regularly. I got a bottle for you here.”

Marnie held the bottle up to the morpeko’s lips. The morpeko didn’t accept it at first, but Marnie waited, and eventually the morpeko became brave enough to drink. The way Marnie gently cradled the morpeko, it might as well have been something she’d done countless times before.

“That morpeko will keep you safe while I’m out there. Just be careful with her, okay? You know how grouchy Ramone can be. Susie and Paul will help you.”

Marnie was concentrating on the morpeko as though it was the only other being that existed. Piers reached out to ruffle her hair – and hesitated as again the image of his father doing the same to him slashed through his mind. His hand fell away. Guilt weighed down upon him heavier than a steel block. It was enough to make him contemplate staying. It was only their dismal surroundings and thought of people like Keith that reminded him what he was aiming to get Marnie and his friends away from.

The entire orphanage gathered to see him off at the gate. Their cheers stayed with him long after he turned onto the next street.

“Good luck, Piers!”

“You can do it!”

“Beat the champion!”

He caught a bus, which took him out of Spikemuth’s mountain and through the marshes. They were brown and uninteresting, making him yearn for the Isle of Armour, though he tried not to think about it. He was unable to stop his thoughts from going to Leon and Sonia as the prospect of meeting them again loomed. Would Sonia have kept the notepad he gave her? Would she have written anything else?

_I probably won’t even find her. She was just being polite when she said we should meet again…_

For once, he wanted the nagging voice in his head to shut up.

Before long, the marshes gave way to buildings. The bus reached Piers’s stop and he stepped into Hammerlocke for the first time in his life. His immediate thought was that it was much cleaner than Spikemuth. The streets were cobbled and the buildings the sort he could only describe as older and more ornate. The sort of place worth treating with respect.

Slumped above the city was a ruined tower, part of a castle. Time had gnawed away on the castle’s oily black stone, leaving behind a carcass splayed out for the city to build upon its remains. The tower’s shape was somewhat draconic, complete with stones in the shape of a wing on one side, though its other wing had been torn off. Piers paused to look at it, pondering how fierce it must have looked when it was complete.

Hammerlocke’s gym was on the outskirts of the city, an area where the ground became ash and the buildings were replaced by rocks. A desert in the middle of Galar, of all places. It didn’t seem natural to Piers.

It turned out the gym was inside an enormous cliff face with holes bored across its jagged rock. As Piers looked at these holes, a noivern poked its head out of one and took flight. Many dragons like it were painted onto the gym’s entrance, two great metal doors the size of houses. Carved above the doorway was the gym’s emblem, what resembled a cross between a dragon’s face and a knight helmet, while the gym’s name, the Hammerlocke Legends, was on a sign underneath. Near the gym’s entrance was a bronze statue. It depicted a man wearing a helmet shaped like the gym’s emblem, who according to a plaque was Oris le Niht, founder of the Legends gym over eight centuries ago.

Shouting. A crowd of teens gathered next to Oris’s statue, forming a circle around something that had them incredibly excited. In the midst of the crowd, a trapinch squared off with a charmeleon Piers recognised well. Sure enough, there was Leon, still wearing his jacket like a cape as he commanded Napalm to deliver the finishing strike. The trapinch landed at the feet of its trainer, a tall, thin boy with spiked black hair.

“Wait, what?” this boy spluttered. “How the hell did that happen? I had the type advantage!”

“That’s right!” whooped Leon. “Even at a disadvantage, we’re unbeatable!”

“Like hell you’s unbeatable,” said Piers, stepping forward.

Leon saw Piers and returned Napalm before he approached him with one of his trademark grins. “So, you didn’t chicken out after all, eh, Piers?”

“Nah, someone’s gotta keep you in check.”

Piers was about to ask where Sonia was when she appeared, running over to Leon.

“How many times am I going to lose sight of you?” she exclaimed. “I turn around and – _Piers!”_

Piers didn’t have chance to think before Sonia was in front of him. Her radiant face was difficult for him to look at directly as he felt his ability to speak flee him. “Err, erm, hi!”

“It’s so good to see you! I missed you lots!”

“Really?” Piers found that hard to believe, but it made him feel better regardless.

Leon budged between them. A spark of anger flared inside Piers that he only just extinguished.

“Yeah, it’s good to be together again,” said Leon. “Napalm’s gonna love to get to battle Bulkhead and Rezillo again, too!”

A roar of grating metal quashed all other sound as the gym’s doors began to slowly open. Everyone present drew closer to watch. In the centre of the entrance stood a man wearing the League staff’s simplistic uniform, consisting of a white polo shirt with the League logo on one breast and black shorts and long socks.

“Attention, all potential challengers!” he barked. “Registrations are now open. Please form a line at the desk inside!”

Leon was off like a rocket.

“Oi, we’re not done here!” yelled the tall boy.

“Thanks for the battle!” Leon called back to him with a wave.

Mustard’s training must have paid off, for Piers and Sonia managed to keep up with Leon and ahead of the stampeding crowd barely two steps behind them. They headed into the gym itself. Within was a small, square lobby area with walls of rugged cave rock. The furthest wall had more metal doors built into it that presumably led to the arena. The gym had proper modern lights installed, at least, and modern rubber flooring. Overhead came the screeches and hisses of Dragon-types. The creatures flew through a network of holes in the distant ceiling; scrappy little noibats, buzzing vibravas and even a pudgy dragonite. 

The trio stopped at the desk, where a woman waited next to some kind of fabric printing machine with a keypad and scanner. While they were the first to reach the desk, their interest was momentarily caught by the cacophony of dragons.

“They’re beautiful!” cooed Sonia.

“This is a weird place to host the openin’ ceremony, innit?” observed Piers.

“The challenge always starts from a gym close to the first one,” informed Leon. “The first gym this time around is the Fairy gym in Ballonlea, and neither of Stow-on-Side’s gyms are Major League this year, so Hammerlocke it is. Travelling with our pokémon is part of the challenge, too, y’know. They start us a way out so the people who realise they can’t handle that part give up early.”

He proceeded to ramble on about how the Hammerlocke Legends were actually one of the most respected gyms and had produced numerous champions over the eons, which in response Piers took a leaf out of Susie’s book and called him a dweeb.

“A good champion’s got to know his stuff,” countered Leon, not the slightest bit affected.

“Suppose that’s fair enough.”

Piers made a mental note to read up more on the Major League gyms when he was able.

After the woman at the desk made quick assessment of the trio’s starting pokémon, deeming them acceptable, they told her their clothing sizes. The woman reached under the desk and came up with three striped sports kits wrapped in plastic bags. Each one had the League’s logo in the middle of the shirt.

“Here are your new challenger kits,” she said. “You are to wear these for the full duration of your Gym Challenge. Do you have a specific shirt number in mind? If not, we’ll give you a randomly-generated three-digit number.”

“1, of course!” Leon replied. “Can you think of a better number for a champion?”

The woman removed Leon’s shirt and shorts from the plastic bag and ran them through the machine. She handed him the newly-numbered kit, and he wasted no time unfolding his shirt for everyone else to see. “It looks perfect!”

Piers had been planning to take a random three-digit number; until that moment, the amount of care he’d had for his number had been in the negatives. As he watched Leon gush over his new shirt, however, that same fighting urge took hold of him.

“2,” he said to the woman at the desk. “I also have my gym’s emblem design here. It’s a Dark-type gym.”

He handed her the drawing his friends had made; the instructions sent by the League had told him to give in an emblem design if he intended to found a new gym. The woman took the paper and held it up to the machine’s scanner after typing on its keypad.

Leon lowered his shirt, grin shrinking as Piers received his kit. Not only was it numbered 2, it had a crisp render of Piers’s emblem design to the bottom right of the League logo. The word ‘DARK’ had been added to the emblem in Galarian capitals.

“And I guess I’ll have 3!” said Sonia when it was her turn.

“How cute,” said the woman. “Though personally I’m just glad none of you asked for 69.”

She directed them towards a series of portable changing facilities outside. Piers spent some time looking himself over in a mirror, smoothing out the fabric and turning to see the 2 on his back. Once changed, he put his old clothes into the bag and handed them to League staff. Leon and Sonia returned a minute later. As always, Leon had kept his cap on.

“You ready?” Piers asked them.

“Born ready!” declared Leon.

“I’m glad one of us was,” said Sonia.

The three waited around in the lobby and watched other trainers turn in their endorsements. The tall boy with the trapinch was one, receiving a shirt numbered 241, which Piers noticed also bore the emblem of the Hammerlocke Legends. The girl after the tall boy received a shirt numbered 049 with a raindrop emblem, though Piers was admittedly more interested in her legs.

The moment finally came when the League staff ordered the challengers to line up. Piers, Leon and Sonia were lined up at the end. Looking around, Piers saw the challengers were grouped together based on their emblems. He felt out-of-place; here he was, a raggedy orphan playing at having a gym, surrounded by trainers from serious gyms with meaningful legacies. Leon and Sonia were at least united in their lack of emblems. Piers was alone.

He clenched his fists, reminding himself that no, he wasn’t alone; he had Marnie, Paul and Susie, and everyone else in the orphanage, all of whom would be watching back home. His emblem was theirs, too, and he had to let it show for their sake.

The line marched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are people still here after that Sinnoh Confirmed announcement? You guys still care about Galar, right?
> 
> Behold, the Galar League before dynamax, before Macro Cosmos. The games aren't entirely consistent about how much of a sporting spectacle it was before dynamax arrived, but I'm aiming to portray it as closer to traditional Pokemon game gyms, with the sporting aspect sprinkled over it.


End file.
